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‘ve written about people out of favor and how the Boston Globe often identifies them and sets it columnists and writers to go after one of these POOFs. Not satisfied with dragging people through the mud unfairly it has now come up with an old world remedy, shunning. It is urging that we shun a person. This doesn’t sound like a melting pot remedy to me. Will it go from a person to a group?
But let me ask you this: Can you think of any mainstream newspaper that has called for an individual to be shunned by his associates and friends? Don’t you think the columnists and reporters working such a paper have to toe the company line. The Globe’s story has always been consistent as shown by its 25 year blood lust seeking the destruction of this person. How can you expect to get a true story from any of its scribes.?
I could possibly understand, although I’m not into shunning, if the Globe after hearing Martorano’s testimony asked us to shun Martorano; or perhaps, suggested that Howie Carr who is profiting off the 20 murders of Martorano be shunned. Or maybe to shun some of the other characters in the Whitey trial like Stevie Flemmi who murdered two women, or Kevin Weeks who talks to the suburban groups pushing his book. Maybe if it suggested shunning John Morris the guy who was supposed to supervise agent John Connolly but had his hand out to all his informants seeking money. Then again, it couldn’t shun Morris because he testified one of the Globe reporters who he helped write a book was a friend of his.
No the Globe wants us to shun a guy it has been defaming since 1988, Billy Bulger. I would not have known about this not being a big Globe reader until I received a tweet from Desq (@4justiss) who referred me to the web site In a much more descriptive manner than I could ever write in an article fully research and referenced, he takes the Globe columnist apart.
You knew the Globe won’t let up on Billy Bulger. It told a half-baked story indicating he did something wrong in the 75 State Street matter. As only the Globe can do, it demanded an investigation of Billy’s role. It had every writer and columnists writing the story over and over again in a frenzy befitting a feeding by hungry sharks.
Dutifully the federals (twice) and state attorney general investigated, they found there was nothing wrong with what he did. It didn’t satisfy the Globe. It had issued its judgment (and its reporters and columnists would write dutifully write books about it). It found him guilty to its charge.
From that day to today it has relentless pushed its falsehood. It has been so effective that the prosecutor who is trying the case against Whitey when asked why FBI agent John Connolly got in trouble he said “he got too close to the Bulgers and Southie.”
Unable to sate its hatred, it is now calling on the “political elite,”whoever they are , (but they surely include the Globe staff) to “shun Bill Bulger.” Jeff Jacoby, who has had his own problems being suspended by the Globe, is the designated hitman this time. It may be a condition of his reinstatement.
Billy’s new crime is he attended the funeral mass of Paul Cellucci. Much to Jacoby’s (and the Globe’s) horror people talked to Billy in a friendly manner. They were hoping cops with truncheons would pummel him for being there.
They allege Billy should be shunned because he didn’t join the Globe in condemning his brother. He didn’t urge his brother to surrender. He wasn’t going to join in the hunt for his brother all of which the Globe demanded. It knew Billy never believed the sordid tales hoping for the best but the Globe believed he should have believed them and kept after him.
Jacoby tells how this was known the Billy wouldn’t help when the secret grand jury testimony was leaked. He conveniently doesn’t tell us it came from the federals to Shelley Murphy of his paper just days before Billy was to testify before a congressional hearing. The usual Boston Globe/federal prosecutors hand holding.
Shunning?
This is America not old Europe where people and groups were shunned. What next? How about taking him out of his house every day giving him some public humiliation in the stocks which can be set up outside the L Street Bathhouse or better still outside the Boston Globe on Morrissey Boulevard and save L Street for the Dunking Stool. How about a scarlet letter like Hester Prynne. What letter will we burn into his forehead? I’ll let the Globe editorial staff decide that.
Here’s something for the Globe – it’s what they did in 1624: .”by starveinge, hangeinge, burneinhge, breakinge upon the wheele and shootinge to deathe, some (more than halfe famished) runninge to the Indians to gett reliefe beinge againe retorned were burnt to deth. Some for stealinge to satisfie thir hunger were hanged, and one chained to a tree till he starved to death; others attemptinge to run awaye . . . beinge discovered and prevented, were shott to death, hanged and broken upon the wheele, besides continuall whippings, extraordinary punishments, workinge as slaves in irons for terme of yeares (and that for petty offenses) weare dayly executed. ”
Then when we’re through with Billy, will the Globe suggest we shun the whole Bulger family? What about the Bulger friends? Maybe the Globe can have a list like its Santa Clause list and anyone seen talking to Billy or members of his family will have her name added to it and we’ll all pledge to shun her.
Oh, what about Southie. Perhaps all the people from Southie should be shunned, or at least those who still refer to it as Southie and not So Bo. Maybe rather than shunning we can do what has been done to people shunned in the past, round them up. Cart them off. Would that satisfy the Globe?
That it is still persecuting and urging people to shun a person who really was an honorable public servant as shown by above blog and is known by most who have followed his career as such shows the depth of evil in the Globe> It should astound you.
This wasn’t a Jeff Jacoby story, it was a Boston Globe story. As I said I’m not into shunning people. I don’t think its something we do in America. It is stunning assault on our American values for a newspaper to urge a person be shunned. But if I were for shunning, I could think of a newspaper, some editors and reporters that deserve that fate.
Matt, Patty et al: The Globe has a 50 plus year history of blatant anti-Catholic picture since before the epoch of Forced Busing when the GLOB tried to paint all Bostonians as racists. There’s a chapter in my book The Fix: The Corruption of Mass. Courts and Agencies (Connolly, Xlibris 1984) which summaries the Globe’s hysterical hatred of conservative Christians, especially Irish and Italian Catholics. Warren Tolman introduced a bill proposing the Irish Famine be taught alongside other genocides: The Holocaust; the Slave Trade; The Globe said it would be a “misreading of history” to compare Irish history to the fate of Jews under the Nazis. The Globe said, “During the Famine, no death camps dotted the Irish countryside.” I responded in with a three-page open letter addressed to Senator Tolman and copied to everyone in the Legislature (it’s included in The Fix); the gist of it was this: “For hundred years England ran Ireland as if it were a concentration camp (Cromwell’s forces killed up to half the Irish and drove most of the rest to the barren lands of Connaught; by 1705, 95% of Irish lands were being held in ownership by foreigners; cruelly punitive draconian Penal Laws punished Catholics severely, and other non-Anglican Christians; Scotch-Irish and Scots suffered too under England’s lash; The Great Famine caused one million deaths through starvation and disease; another one million were wasted to the bone; another one-and-one-half million fled Ireland; from 1846 to 1851, the FAmine Years, Ireland under cruel English rule remained a food-exporting nation; other European countries suffering under the same blight on potatoes, ceased all food exports; only in Ireland was there massive starvation; By the 1870s, Ireland’s pre-famine population of 8.5 million persons had shrunk to 3.5 million persons. What history, by God, was the Globe referring to? No death camps in Ireland? From 1847-1851, the entire Irish countryside was a death camp, littered with the starving, famished, diseased, dying and dead, and many dead were found “their mouths discolored green” from eating grass. That’s your Boston Globe for you. I also recommended Tolman’s Bill be amended to include the Ukrainian forced famine genocides under Stalin, the Armenian genocide by the Turks, and Rwanda’s genocidal, fratricidal horror of Tutsi and Hutus butchering each other.
For posterity’s sake: one final thought about Jacoby’s call for shunning William Bulger by “elite” politicians. First, how cowardly for Jacoby to kick down and stab in the back the octogenarian, while Bill Bulger is in his waning years, without political power, and has thrown no stones at Jacoby, his family or his friends. How cravenly cowardly! Et tu, Brutus; the rat turns, as the worm turns, at the last desperate moment to attack an innocent honorable person. “So are they all, all these Globophiles, dishonorable men!!!” Second, read Thomas Sowell’s classic 1984 opus, Ethnic America, and compare side by side the hard histories of eight different ethnic groups that came to America. Third, men like Carr, Dershowitz, Cullen, Jacoby and Gelzinis think that because they have the legal right to do something (Constitutional Guarantee of Free Speech) that means they can exercise that right without constraint: and so they use free speech to impale political opponents, their families, their friends, their neighborhoods, and to turn good person against good person. 4. The Nazis turned children against their parents (see The Sound of Music); the pro-abortion Feminazis turned mothers against the child they carried in their womb; Jacoby and his cohorts would have us turn brother against brother, and sell out our brothers to the FEDS because some FEDS alleged that a brother 20 years earlier had committed murder and other felonies. Unlike Ted Kocinsky’s (sp. Unibomber) brother who turned the mad bomber in because he was a walking time bomb and on the verge of killing other innocents, Jacoby insists that if Orwell’s Goldstein (read “1984”)& the FEDS allege our brother committed crimes 20 years earlier (1984 in fact was the last alleged murder by Bulger or his Martorano, wasn’t it) that we should genuflect and obey THE NAMELESS FACELESS GRACELESS BOOTLESS FEDS who come knocking at our doors in the dead of the night. Orwell was right, “Thank God we’ve got men who are willing to go out at 3:00 A.M. and confront these Goose-Stepping Demons who lurk in the shadows and prey on us.” Lastly, all of America seems to be divided in two: THE FEDS (corrupt gov. types, corrupt lobbyists, corrupt financiers, narco-terrorists) and the UNFEDs (= the rest of us). It’s all spelled out in my next novel: Spelllingsley Woods. Yes, with 3 Ls.
William:
1. I agree Jacoby did a cowardly act which is his right to do.
2. I think I have read Sowell many years ago.
3. Free speach means you can do whatever you want with few exceptions – it is open to all and it is good that people take advantage of it. None of the men you named have violated any of their free speech rights.
4. People are not forced to follow anyone’s speech so don’t blame the speaker as much as each individual
5. I don’t think the Feds are bootless and out at 3 am.
6. Interesting title for your book, what is is supposed to convey and why the third L.
Texts show that “shunning” has been a form of punishment under Jewish Law for centuries. It’s stated purpose is to compel conformity within a community.
Jacoby is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks the Boston will heed his command to shun William Bulger. Jacoby and the Globe are further off if they think shunning could ever force William to conform to their community beliefs.
Too many people in this world know Bulger to have been an unapologetic public servant. He made a career from doing what he believed was right, not what the Globe commanded him to do. That is exactly why Bulger is welcomed to a front row seat among Boston’s dignitaries.
The only effect of Jacoby’s rant is to underscore the Globe’s impotence. It haunts them.
Patty:
The people who shunned the Jews eventually ended up as the losers. Shunning a person or group makes those shunned into a more determined and powerful person. No longer does the person or group have to go along with what is accepted but it can carve out its own path.
Jacoby and the Globe are passing from the scene and the cry to shun Billy may be one of their last cries. I hope whoever buys it gets rid of those who think shunnning is the way we treat people. You are right, as the Globe becomes less influential it will shout out for help in a louder voice until it sinks into the marsh on which it is built.
Bill Bulger and Paul Cellucci were colleagues and friends.
As the child of a Holocaust survivor mr. jacoby should be ashamed of himself for using the pen as the weapon for such a smear.
Bill Bulger is guilty of being a better lawyer than jacoby could ever hope to be and a loving brother.
It seems that The globe has unleased its rabid caleb for its latest calumny.
Thinking people with heart and soul see right through this cheap effort to sell newspapers. The very idea that Bill Bulger stands tall while the paper continues into the slag heap is unbearable for them and their
minions.
Hopalong:
If Jacoby is a lawyer he certainly doesn’t show it. I would not even put him in the same sentence as Billy when it came to lawyering. Billy was a good lawyer who could have made many millions had he pursued that career. Had Jacoby you’d have been well advised not to get between his car and an ambulance. 25 years it has gone after Billy and caused him to lose the presidency of UMass – for which we all suffered since he could have done great things there.
Jacoby’s story on the funeral of Gov. Paul Celucci and the suggestion that Bill Bulger be subject to a shunning for attending a funeral is a new low for the Boston Globe.
How does one respond to such malicious reporting? The Globe buys ink by the barrel AND is abusing its duty to be somewhat objective Has Jacoby no sense of decency? He should be the one to be shunned.
Jim:
That’s saying a mouthful about a new low. It’s amazing the Globe has kept up this vendetta for over 25 years. Maybe had it not it would be doing better now. Wouldn’t that be something that in its unjust attempt to harm a good man it damaged itself. First one out the door when the new owners come on board should be Jacoby.
The great white whale still torments the Globe. No wonder they are going out of business.
N:
What happened to Captain Ahab’s ship? You are seeing a similarity.
Matt: Jeff Jacoby, in joining his fellow character assassins at the Boston Globe and his think-a-likes Howie Carr, Allan Dershowitz and Peter Gelzinis, has shown his true colors. He’s a hater. Remember, it was the Boston Globe that called for a boycott (a Salem-witch-hunt-type shunning en masse) of the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade after the Veterans had won a unanimous 9-0 victory at SCOTUS (Hurley v. Irish-Am. Group, US 1995). Jacoby and his pals will take us back to the Nazi-era of social-shunnings and singlings-out and, you and others are absolutely correct, to the KNOW-NOTHING-ERA of the 19th Century: Irish-Catholics of principle who practice their faith should be ostracized. And some people don’t think we’re in a Cultural War when Newspaper People in Boston think freedom of association applies only to themselves. Jacoby: Jump in a Lake!
William:
Thought you like Jeff? To work for the Globe you need to join in the group-think – someone like Jacoby is in a very peculiar position since he’s already got the boot once so he has to insure he follows the leaders. That though is a newspaper’s prerogative to put out it’s own versino of the turth.