1. Question.
2. Money.
3. Would they be willing to kill?
4. Summary.
1. Question.
I would like to understand the Cambridge Machine better.
How much money is split? Is organized crime involved, and to what extent? Would they be ready to kill people, if they think the threat to their power is real?
2. Money.
The money probably is unproveable. You have the standard boycott of noncompliant persons and the very clear threat of such shunning. And the standard situation in which professionals active in Cambridge see approvals to their benefit elsewhere, approvals which would be lost if the activists were meaningfully doing what they say they are doing. They would be shunned if they were meaningfully doing what they say they are doing.
The exact workings are undeterminent. It is a matter of a fake reality in which the voters are told one thing and the developers and contractors know better. So both sides are kept happy.
The situation dates back to James Leo Sullivan who used his Development Department to create a series of "neighborhood associations" naturally including his friends. The controllers of the various controlled entities gave the groups apparent functions which they fulfilled except insofar as the functions conflicted with the wishes of the city government. The groups are controlled by smaller core entities which are hand selected by the creators. In the past, I have had significant successes by calling out people to meetings, but, with the death of rent control, there was no need for the pols to keep an eye on each other. Then, the falsities got much more intense.
The reality, however, is that it is always impossible to identify specific types. Many folks are simply outnumbered by con artists who gang up on them. At least in theory it is impossible to tell the knaves from the fools. They all sound and act alike. So many very terrible things, in reality, have seeds in the Cambridge City Government which are buried as far as possible.
The first target was the best park in the central part of the city for a high school expansion which could have been done in place as a campus style school, but they wanted a consolidated school and they wanted to expand the library in place. 23 hundred year old trees were destroyed with the lie: we are replacing the Cambridge Street park with a park on Broadway. Excellent trees with grass and a lot of saplings. The obvious happened. The library expansion was done and almost all the saplings were destroyed. The back stabbers on Broadway got what they deserved and the city and the environment lost badly.
I got a preliminary injunction which lost because the judge found that the park was not a park.
The common law action upon which I based my case has been subsequently watered down so as to make further such initiatives much more difficult if even possible.
There always has been a closely knit core which works together. They were liberal types, most of whom supported rent control. With the death of rent control, Cambridge lost its party system in which the pro and anti rent control factions kept an eye on each other. So the blue collar, anti rent control (landlords, laborers) and the white collar / educational, pro rent control (architects) got together with the city manager's people in the background and significant numbers of city councilors in the background.
The issues which brought the entities together were supposed zoning protections. Once rent control died, the fake initiatives got much more real and deceptive.
A good example is the historical building at 10 Mount Auburn Street in Harvard Square. I saved that building in front of the Rent Control Board. A city manager related zoning petition created the Harvard Square Overlay District, giving meaningless public input in exchange for very real destruction of key fine print in the zoning ordinance. The project built at 8 to 10 Mt. Auburn included the building I saved at a density which would have been impossible before that upzoning. And it goes on.
I stood up to the bastards and frequently had very major successes with The Machine very often being the real opponents. After the death of rent control, their zoning initiatives started getting more and more successful as both sides split the spoils of fake protections.
I was deeply concerned about the Alewife reservation. I found a "protective" group created with machine connections. I was outorganized by The Machine. They are destroying Alewife lying that they are protecting. The game is to yell at private developers on the periphery, tell people to fight, fight, fight, and ignore the real problem, the intention of Cambridge and the state to destroy the core Alewife reservation, supposedly for flood protection, in reality to create an urban park supporting office buildings in place of the historical woodlands the "activists" claim to love.
Talking with the supposed activists in the local supposed neighborhood association is very telling. They are willing to do anything on the issue except the one thing which would work: talk to the city council. Very much the standard situation: company unions which prevent meaningful action by getting people to do anything except things which could win.
The first stage of destruction has occurred at Alewife. Acres have been destroyed for "flood protection" against two year storms, which are nothing.
The area needs storm protection. The alternative to destroying Alewife is to build flood protection with city and state money as large reservoirs under new buildings. The Machine is running around yelling Silver Maple Forest until there are no buildings left to put meaningful flood protection under. The "leader" went into the Chronicle bragging about the first phase destruction, and has continued loudly yelling to play Don Quixote against projects but not against the zoning which creates them.
One of the nastiest things was the Sheila Cook zoning petition which I wrote and Sheila led. The "activists" treated Sheila like crap. Her zoning changed the legal use of a parking lot on state land to open space. When the owner agreed to convert the parking lot to open space, The Machine conducted a celebration in which Machine Activists were treated like royalty and Sheila and I were ignored, shunned.
The same con exists on the Charles River. The pitch is to ignore the very real problems irresponsibly created over the past 13 years and ignore the irresponsible plans to make things even worse. When the state wanted to expand the outrage, The Machine tried to ram it through, but The Meeting front organization did not look like it would approve the outrage. So they delayed the action from the January meeting to the February meeting which was held on April 23 at which time they demonstrated clear corruption.
Throughout all this, the key is holier than thou goals which have a strong tendency not only not to be achieved but to see achievements which the group supposedly opposes. Good people are being misused by lies of omission and commission and by fake definitions under which "environmentalism" has become protecting that part of the environment the City of Cambridge does not feel like destroying at the present time.
By now all active pols have to be part of The Machine or else.
Interestingly, the senator representing the Western part of the city is running for congress bragging of defending Alewife. I explained reality to one of his workers who was appropriate shocked.
3. Would they be willing to kill?
The killing is white collar, shunning.
The destruction of the life of Malvina Monteiro because she filed a civil rights complaint is one of the few excellent examples which have escaped the deliberate murk of shunning.
Judge, Jury and Appeals Court condemned the Cambridge City Manager for destroying the life of Malvina Monteiro in very strong terms.
The decisions gave the Cambridge City Council full power to fire the Cambridge City Manager for malfeasance in office.
Exactly zero attempts were made to fire the Cambridge City Manager. A motion to slap him on the wrist was tabled with some folks who filed the motion voting to table.
4. Summary.
This response, of necessity, left a lot out. Of necessity, for exposition purposes, there are problems with historically following one point after another above. If you notice that problem, please excuse me. Of necessity, as well, are defects in perfect exposition. Perfect exposition would take many, many words. There are analyses on this blog which attempt that. They are very long and thus unreadible.
The situation in Cambridge, MA is rotten. It, however, has a core upon which the structure lacks strength. They live on a foundation of lies. The lies are provable.
The way to win is to put together decent people who are free of the filth, and keep those who are part of the filth out. The core principal is back stabbing with a smile. Persons with any record of back stabbing have to be kept out of any meaningful organization.
