Academic literature on the topic 'Anti-mafia history'

This article presents the results of a piece of research into extortion in the city of Palermo between 2004 and 2015. Highlighting the importance of the territorial context among the factors that explain the mafia phenomenon, the study draws on two different georeferencing databases: the first relating to the distribution of extortion across the Sicilian capital's various districts, and the second relating to the distribution of Palermo businesses that had joined the Addiopizzo anti-extortion movement. Although the empirical material is problematic, marked territorial variations emerge from a comparative analysis of the two databases, prompting a number of potential interpretations.

For the last decade, Libera Terra has been operating in Italy as a cooperative that turns land once used by the mafia into organic farms and undulating vineyards. Lemons, lentils, chickpeas, grapes—the land is as stunningly beautiful as it is heavy with history. The cooperative aims to make products that people buy not just for their stories but for their quality; provide workers with fair wages and respect; improve the daunting unemployment rate in Sicily, particularly among youth; and undo decades worth of systemic corruption. In 1996, the Italian government passed a law allowing land formerly used by the Mafia to be taken over by social cooperatives like Libera Terra. Centopassi is a winery under the umbrella of the Libera Terra cooperative. Self-described as “an attempt to produce high-quality wines as a way to give new dignity to lands and people that deserve a better future,” the wine label takes its name from the 2000 film of the same name, meaning “One Hundred Steps,” about the life of Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato, an anti-Mafia activist who was killed in 1976.

In the HBO series The Sopranos, Tony and his friends use “prosthetic memories” to anchor their ethnic and criminal identities. Prosthetic memories were theorised by Alison Landsberg in her book Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. She argues that prosthetic memories are memories acquired through the mass media and do not come from a person’s lived experience in any sense (Landsberg 20). In this article, I will outline how The Sopranos television show and its characters interact with prosthetic memories. Extending Christopher Kocela’s work on The Sopranos and white ethnicities, I will show how characters use prosthetic memories to define their ethnicity while the show itself knowingly plays with this to provide comedic and critical commentary about the influence of gangster stereotypes. According to Landsberg, prosthetic memories are powerful memories of historical events or narratives that an individual was not present for. They are typically formed at the "interface between a personal and historical narrative about the past at an experiential site such as a movie theatre or museum" (2). It is at such a moment that a person can suture themselves into a larger history. Consequently, these memories do not just enhance an individual’s apprehension of a historical event. Rather, they create a deeply felt personal memory of a past event through which they did not live (Landsberg 4). Prosthetic memories are largely made available through the technologies of mass culture such as film, television and experiential places like museums. Their accessibility helps to differentiate them from other cultural strategies for passing on memories to future generations. Other strategies have typically been rooted in the cultural or racial status of an individual (Landsberg 22). In addition, Landsberg asserts that the successfulness of mnemotechnic rituals like the Jewish Passover Seder is dependent on ethnicity (26). Similarly, Walter Benn Michaels concludes that these rituals can only be effective if the individual has “some prior assumption of identity between you and them and this assumption is often racial” (680). Contrastingly, the perpetuation of prosthetic memories through mass media makes them widely accessible across racial lines. According to Landsberg, they are not “naturally- ethnically, racially or biologically- one’s intended inheritance” (26). Prosthetic memories introduce the possibility that memories can be acquired by anyone. The technologies of mass culture make these memories portable and as such, challenges the assumption that memory is “in anyway essential or organically grounded or the private property of a specific ethnic or racial group” (27). In The Sopranos, most characters are third or fourth generation Italian immigrants. Much like for many ‘real’ Italian migrants, time has severed familial connections to their homeland (see Landsberg 49-55). Landsberg suggests that immigrants initially became Americanised in order to escape persecution and being labelled as “other” (51). This meant that ethnically exclusive mnemotechnic rituals were not preserved for subsequent generations of immigrants. In order to sustain an ethnic identity, immigrants (and the characters in The Sopranos) have been forced to turn to more accessible tools like prosthetic memories. Christopher Kocela’s analysis of Italian-Americanness in The Sopranos, argues that characters maintain an Italian American ethnicity while still racially identifying as white. According to Colin Webster “white ethnicity” can be best exemplified through the long tradition of European immigration to America (295). With the influx of immigrants, there was a codification of the idea that “some whites are ‘whiter’ than others” (Webster 297). European working-class immigrants struggled to be afforded the same white “privileges” and membership to the white race. Instead, they were defined as being members of “other” white ethnicities. Roediger argued that such a denial of whiteness pushed European immigrants to insist on their own whiteness by defining themselves against other ethnic minorities like African Americans (8). Between 1890 and 1945, eventual assimilation saw white ethnicities become “fully white” (Roediger 8). Webster argues that: “In this sense, whiteness is nearly always salvageable in a way that black, Mexican, Asian, and Native American ethnicity is not (sic)” (Webster 297). In a similar vein, Kocela suggests that the assimilated characters in The Sopranos benefit from their white racial status while still maintaining an Italian ethnicity. This celebration of ethnic difference by Tony and his friends can serve as a smokescreen for the silent maintenance of whiteness (Kocela 14). Kocela suggests that the show critiques these types of responses that characters have to their ethnicity, stating that "we do not learn from The Sopranos the language of ethnic sons deprived of their Italian godfathers, but the language of racial misrecognition spoken by sons whose lost white fathers were never really their own" (16).Kocela’s article provides a useful discussion about the relationship that characters in The Sopranos have with their ethnicity. This article extends this discussion by showing how prosthetic memories and characters’ understanding of mass media are a crucial element in how such ethnic identities are formed. This will lead to a discussion about how The Sopranos comments on and treats these adopted stereotypes. “What do poor Italian-immigrants have to do with you?”: How Characters Interact with Prosthetic MemoriesCharacters in The Sopranos heavily rely upon stereotypes from gangster films to perform their version of Italian Americanness. A reliance on prosthetic memories from such films leads to the manifestation of violence being intertwined with the characters’ ethnic identities. Brian Faucette has discussed the inherent link between violence and gangster films from the 1930s-60s. He claims that “it was violence that enabled the upward mobility of these figures” (76). It is almost impossible to separate violence from the gangster films referenced in The Sopranos. As such, violence becomes part of the ritualistic ways prosthetic memories are created. This is evident in the pilot episode of The Sopranos when Christopher performs his first hit (kill). In the scene, he shoots rival gang member, Emil, in the back of the head at Satriales Pork Store. Before the hit, the pair are standing close together in front of a pinboard collage of “classic” Italian movie gangsters. As they both walk away in opposite directions the camera pulls out diagonally to follow Christopher. Throughout the duration of the shot, the collage is always placed behind Christopher. Finally, when the pan stops, Christopher is positioned in the foreground, with the collage behind him to the right. The placement of the collage gives it a front row seat to the ensuing murder while serving as a kind of script for it. It is not enough for Christopher to simply kill Emil, rather it is important that it is done in the presence of his idols in order to ensure his enhanced identification with them. Moreover, for Christopher, being an Italian American gangster and violence are inseparable. He must perform acts of extreme violence in order to suture himself into a larger, stereotypical narrative, that equates Italian-Americanness with the mafia. Through Landsberg’s theory, it is possible to see the intertwined relationship between performances of Italian-Americanness and violence. To enact their version of Italian-Americanism, characters follow the script of masculine-violence inherent to gangster films. As well as tools to perform Italian American identities, prosthetic memories can be used by characters to deny their whiteness. Kocela argues that Tony can deny or affirm his whiteness, depending on the situation. According to Kocela, Tony’s economic success is intrinsically linked to his racial status as a white man (16). However, this is not a view shared by characters in the show. In the episode From Where to Eternity Dr. Melfi asks Tony how he justifies his criminal lifestyle: Tony: When America opened the floodgates and let all us Italians in, what do you think they were doing it for? ... The Carnegies and the Rockefellers, they needed worker bees and there we were. But some of us didn't want to swarm around their hive and lose who we were. We wanted to stay Italian and preserve the things that meant something to us: honor, and family, and loyalty. ... Now we weren't educated like the Americans, but we had the balls to take what we wanted. And those other fucks, the J.P. Morgans, they were crooks and killers too, but that was the business, right? The American way.Dr. Melfi: That might all be true. But what do poor Italian immigrants have to do with you and what happens every morning when you step out of bed?Kocela describes Tony’s response as a “textbook recitation of the two-family myth of Italian-American identity in which criminal activities are justified in a need to resist assimilation” (28). It is evident that for Tony, being Italian American is defined by being ethnically different. To admit that whiteness contributes to his economic success would undermine the justification he gives for his criminal lifestyle and his self-perceived status as an Italian American. Despite this, Melfi’s statement rings true. The experience of “poor Italian immigrants” does not affect Tony’s daily lifestyle. Characters in The Sopranos do not face the same oppression and discrimination as first-generation migrants (Kocela 28). After decades of assimilation, Tony and his friends turn to the narratives of discrimination and ethnic difference present in gangster films. This is exemplified through Tony’s identification with Vito Corleone from The Godfather. Vito exemplifies Tony’s notion of Italian Americanism. He was a poor immigrant that turned to criminality to protect the Italian-American community and their way of life. Vito is also connected to Italy in a way that Tony admires. When Paulie asks Tony what his favourite scene from The Godfather is he responds with: Don Ciccio’s Villa, when Vito goes back to Sicily, the crickets, the great old house. Maybe it’s because I’m going over there, ya know? Gangster films and representations of Italian-Americanness often deliberately differentiate Italian families from “regular” white people (D’Acierno 566). According to D’Acierno, gangster narratives often involve two types of Italian families, one that has been left powerless by its assimilation to American culture and another that has resisted this through organised crime (D’Acierno 567). Tony and his friends tap into these narratives in their attempt to create prosthetic memories that differentiate their ethnicity and ultimately draw attention away from the whiteness which silently benefits them.The “inauthenticity” of these prosthetic memories is probably most pronounced in the episode Commendatori when Tony, Christopher and Paulie visit Italy. The trip shatters the expectations that the characters had of their homeland and sheds light on some of their delusions about what it means to be Italian. Paulie expects to love Italy and be greeted with open arms by the locals. Unfortunately, he dislikes it all because it is too foreign for him. At the banquet, Paulie finds the authentic Italian octopus uneatable and instead orders “spaghetti and gravy.” He is also unable to use the bathrooms because he is so used to American toilets. When at a local café he tries to initiate conversation with some local men using broken Italian. Even though they hear him, the group ignores him. Despite all this Paulie, pretends that it was a great trip:Big Pussy: So how was it?Paulie: Fabulous, I felt right at home… I feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t been … especially any Italian. The prosthetic memories that defined these characters’ perceptions of Italy are based on the American media’s portrayal of Italy. Commendatori thus exposes the differences between what is “authentically Italian” and the prosthetic memories about Italy generated by American gangster films. By the end of the episode it has become clear that these “inauthentic” prosthetic memories have forged an entirely different, hybrid ethnic identity.“Louis Brasi sleeps with the fishes”: How The Sopranos Treats Prosthetic MemoriesIntertextuality is an important way through which the audience can understand how The Sopranos treats prosthetic memories. The prosthetic memories generated by characters in The Sopranos are heavily based on stereotypes of Italian Americans. Papaleo states that the Italian stereotype is “composed of overreactions: after bowing, smiling and being funny, the Italian loses control” (93). Mafia films are crucial in defining the identity of Tony and his friends, and David Pattie suggests that they are a “symbolic framework within which Tony, Paulie, Christopher and Silvio attempt to find meaning and justification for their lives” (137). In a similar way, the audience is invited to use these same films as a frame for watching The Sopranos itself. Mafia stereotypes are one of the dominant ways that depict Italian Americans on screen. According to Larke-Walsh, this has perpetuated the belief that crime and Italian-Americanness are synonymous with each other (226). The show is obsessively referential and relies on the viewer’s knowledge of these films for much of its effect. Pattie describes how such use of intertextuality can be explained: "[there are] two ways of looking at self-referential programs: one in which readings of other media texts can be contained first of all within the film or program in which they occur; and a more covert type of referential work, which relies almost exclusively on the audience’s detailed, constantly-updated cultural intelligence" (137). The Sopranos operates on both levels as references that are simultaneously textual and meta-textual. This is evident through the way the show treats The Godfather films. They are by far the most frequently mentioned ones (Golden 95). According to Chris Messenger, the central link between the two is the acknowledgement that “America itself has been totally colonised by The Godfather” (Messenger 95). The Godfather is an urtext that frames how audiences are invited to view the show. As such, The Sopranos invites the viewer to use the Godfather as a lens to uncover extra layers of meaning. For example, The Sopranos uses the misguided ways in which its characters have taken on stereotypes from The Godfather as a source of humour. The series plays on the fact that characters will allow prosthetic memories derived from gangster films to dictate their behaviour. In the pilot episode, Christopher calls “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero to help him dispose of a body. Christopher informs Pussy that it’s his plan to leave the body at a garbage stop to be discovered by the rival Czechoslovakians. Christopher hoped this would emulate the “Luca Brasi situation” from The Godfather and intimidate the Czechoslovakians. When he explains this to Pussy, they have the following exchange. Pussy: The Kolar uncle is gonna find a kid dead on one of his bins and get on our fuckin’ business… no way!Christopher: Louis Brasi sleeps with the fishes.Pussy: Luca Brasi… Luca! There are differences Christopher… okay… from the Luca Brasi situation and this. Look, the Kolar’s know a kid is dead, it hardens their position... plus now the cops are lookin’ for a fuckin’ murderer!To members of the audience who are familiar with The Godfather, it immediately becomes clear that Christopher is comically misguided. In the Godfather, Luca Brasi was murdered because he was caught trying to infiltrate a powerful rival organisation. Fish wrapped in his bullet-proof vest were then sent back to the Corleones in order to notify them that their plan had been foiled (“Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes”). The “Luca Brasi situation” was a calculated and strategic move whereas Christopher’s situation amounts to a seemingly random, unauthorised killing. This sequence in The Sopranos uses this comparison for comedic effect and plays on the stereotype that all Italian Americans are mafioso and that all mafia behaviour is interchangeable. The symbolic language of the “Luca Brasi” scene is contrasted with explicit shots of a slumped, lifeless body. These shots are a source of macabre humour. The audience is invited to laugh at the contrast between the subtle, thoughtful nature of the Luca Brasi situation and the brash violence of Christopher’s own predicament. Through this comedic situation, The Sopranos critiques Christopher’s aspiration to be a godfather-esque gangster by showing his incompetence. Christopher’s misreading of the situation is further emphasised by his mistakenly referring to Luca Brasi as “Louis”. After Pussy says: “There are differences… from the Luca Brasi situation and this”, the dialogue pauses and the scene cuts to an immediate close up of Emil’s body falling to the side. This illustrates that part of the joke is that characters are willing to allow prosthetic memories derived from gangster films to dictate their behaviour, no matter how inappropriate. Therefore, Christopher is willing to refer to a scene from the Godfather that fails to account for the context of a situation without even consulting the knowledge of Big Pussy. This leads to a larger critique of the ways in which films like The Godfather are presented as a script for all Italian Americans to follow. Nevertheless, The Sopranos still has a role in perpetuating these same stereotypes. Tomasulo has argued that "despite its use of postclassical generic, narrative aesthetic devices, and its creation by an Italian American, The Sopranos relies heavily on demeaning tropes of ethnicity, class, sexuality and gender" (206). This results in a perpetuation of negative stereotypes about working class Italian Americans that affirm old Hollywood clichés. While The Sopranos has tried to transcend this through complex characterisation, irony and universalisation, Tomasulo asserts that most audiences “take The Sopranos as straight - that is a raw unvarnished anthropology of Americans of Italian descent” (206). The origin of characters’ anti-social personalities seems to stem directly from their ethnicity and their being Italian appears to constitute an explanation for their behaviour. In his article Kocela discusses the complicated relationship that characters have with their white ethnicity. Through an application of Landsberg’s theory it is possible to understand how these ethnicities are initially formed and how they continue to circulate. In response to assimilation, characters in The Sopranos have turned to mass media to generate prosthetic memories of their ethnic heritage. These memories generally originate in classic gangster films. They are used by characters in The Sopranos to deny their whiteness and justify their criminality. The Sopranos itself comments on the complex ways that characters interpret gangster film stereotypes for both comedic and critical commentary. In the epilogue of her book, Landsberg asks: “How can we be sure the politics inspired by prosthetic memories are progressive and ethical?” Prosthetic memories generated by gangster texts are almost inherently problematic. Scholars have criticised the hyper-aggressive masculinity and regressive gender roles that are rampant throughout the genre (Larke-Walsh 226). For Tony and his friends, these problematic gender politics have helped justify their criminal lifestyle and valorised violence as part of ethnic performance. Similarly, these stereotypes are not always circulated critically and are at times perpetuated for audience enjoyment. AcknowledgmentI would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Michelle Phillipov for providing constructive feedback on earlier drafts. References“Commendatori.” The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season. Writ. David Chase. Dir. Tim Van Patten. HBO, 2000. DVD.Coppola, Francis, and Mario Puzo. The Godfather. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Home Video, 1972.“D-Girl.” The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season. Writ. Todd A. Kessler. Dir. Allen Coulter. HBO, 2000. DVD.D'Acierno, Pellegrino. “Cinema Paradiso.” The Italian American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts. New York: Garland, 1999. 563-690.Faucette, Brian. "Interrogations of Masculinity: Violence and the Retro-Gangster Cycle of the 60s." Atenea 28.1 (2008): 75-85.“From Where to Eternity.” The Sopranos: The Complete Second Season. Writ. Michael Imperioli. Dir. Henry Bronchtein. HBO, 2000. DVD. Golden, Cameron. "You're Annette Bening? Dreams and Hollywood Subtext in The Sopranos." Lavery, David. Reading The Sopranos: Hit TV from H.B.O. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. 91-103.Kocela, Christopher. "Unmade Men: The Sopranos after Whiteness." Postmodern Culture 15.2 (2005). <http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.105/15.2kocela.html>.Landsberg, Alison. Prosthetic Memories: The Transformation of American Rememberance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.Messenger, Christopher. Godfather and American Culture: How the Corleones Became Our Gang. New York: State University of New York Press, 2002.Michaels, Walter Ben. "Race into Culture: A Critical Geneology of Cultural Identity." Critical Inquiry 18.4 (1992): 655-85.Larke-Walsh, George. Screening the Mafia: Masculinity, Ethnicity and Mobsters from The Godfather to The Sopranos. Jefferson: McFarland, 2010.Papaleo, Joseph. "Ethnic Images and Ethnic Fate: The Media Image of Italian Americans." Ethnic Images in American Film and Television (1978): 44-95.Pattie, David. "Mobbed Up: The Sopranos and the Modern Gangster Film." Lavery, David. This Thing of Ours: Investigating The Sopranos. New York: Wallflower Press, 2002. 137-152.Roediger, D.R. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. London: Verso, 2007. Thorburn, D. "The Sopranos." In The Essential H.B.O Reader, eds. G. Edgerton and J. Jones. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2008. 61-70.Tomasulo, Frank. "The Guinea as Tragic Hero: The Complex Representation of Italian Americans." In The Essential Sopranos Reader, eds. David Lavery, Douglas Howard, and Paul Levinson. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2011. 196-207.“The Sopranos.” The Sopranos: The Complete First Season. Writ. David Chase. Dir. David Chase. HBO, 1999. DVD. “Walk like a Man.” The Sopranos: The Complete Sixth Season. Writ. Terence Winter. Dir. Terence Winter. HBO, 2007. DVD. Webster, Colin. "Marginalized White Ethnicity, Race and Crime." Theoretical Criminology 12 (2008): 293-312.

In foregrounding the performative character of hate speech, legal scholars and activists have sought to demonstrate why hate speech should be prohibited not only on the basis of what it says but on the basis of what it does. In this article I examine the conditions upon which hate speech has been posited as performative speech in order to consider how virtual environments trouble existing understandings of hate speech. In particular, this article seeks to show how cyberspace may in fact create the conditions for a more immediate and radical recontextualisation and recirculation of hate speech where speed operates as a potential source of resistance. In foregrounding the performative character of hate speech, legal scholars and activists have sought to demonstrate why hate speech should be prohibited not only on the basis of what it says but on the basis of what it does. In this article I examine the conditions upon which hate speech has been posited as performative speech in order to consider how virtual environments trouble existing understandings of hate speech. In particular, this article seeks to show how cyberspace may in fact create the conditions for a more immediate and radical recontextualisation and recirculation of hate speech where speed operates as a potential source of resistance. Judith Butler maintains that "speech is always in some ways out of our control" (15). This is not to suggest that our speech is bound to misfire. Instead, Butler's claim draws attention to the range of possibilities located precisely within the failed speech act, revealing how such misfires offer the possibility that certain words which carry the potential to injure may eventually become "disjointed from their power to injure and recontextualised in more affirmative modes" (15). Whereas Langston suggests that such speech events inevitably work to silence intended victims, Butler recognises how the subject may also be inaugurated through such linguistic injuries. She maintains that to be injured through language is to "suffer a loss of context, that is, not to know where you are" (4). The "loss of context" or disorientation she claims might result from hate speech not only suggests that hate speech is context-specific but also that hate speech, understood as a performance, might transform or even produce a speaker's social location. In this view, the very words used to "put someone in their place" may also enable people to speak up from their position on the margins of power. Thus, the repetition of hate speech does not necessarily reinforce certain words' power to injure but may result in a pattern of "slippages" which enables the meaning and force of such speech to eventually come undone. In order to understand the impact of hate speech in virtual environments, it is useful to consider how the spatial and temporal character of cyberspace affects the repetitions to which Butler refers. While we typically speak of cyber-space, the emergence of cyberspace has arguably resulted in an increased preoccupation with time. For Virilio, the shift from space to time appears to be most visible in cyberspace, which he maintains does not represent a space so much as a particular temporal dimension where speed, not territory, holds the most strategic value. However, he further maintains that we have also reached a moment when humans, who have already surpassed the sound and heat barriers, are left with nothing to race against but speed of light -- something which can never be surpassed. And, as he warns, like other technological revolutions, this one is bound to result in an accident, this time not a physical one but instead one which will throw history itself into a disarray. "Cyberspace looms up like a transfer accident in substantial reality", he warns, "what gets damaged is no longer the substance, the materiality of the tangible world, it is the whole of its constitution" (Open Sky 131). Thus, cyberspace not only appears to give rise to an accelerated sort of time but to create the conditions under which we run the risk of suffering a "fundamental loss of orientation" (Speed and Information). I would like to consider how the speed and subsequent loss of orientation Virilio associates with virtual environments may in fact be the very condition which opens up the possibility for a more immediate and radical recontextualisation of hate speech in such spaces. In positing cyberspace as a radically discontinuous space, Virilio implies that cyberspace may represent a break with history itself. One need only consider how quickly existing forms of inequity have become entrenched in cyberspace to understand the extent to which it is not an entirely new or autonomous space. It follows then that the pattern of perlocutionary effects which apparently enables certain words to injure is not disrupted simply because such words are circulating in a virtual space. However, this is not to suggest that subordinate speech necessarily acts identically on line and off. If to be injured through language is to "suffer a loss of context, that is, not to know where you are" (Butler 4), what might it mean to suffer a loss of context in cyberspace? What might it mean to become disoriented in a space where one's context is always and already destabilised? And, what sorts of possibilities are created in cyberspace when one is thrust into an ill-fitting or undesirable social location? I maintain that in cyberspace the potential to suffer a loss of context as a result of a linguistic injury is always partially foreclosed by the fact that one never knows precisely where one is to begin with. It follows that in cyberspace the intended victim of a verbal assault is also at least less likely to become disarmed, debilitated, and silenced. Without overemphasising the agency one gains in virtual environments, is it not possible that one's ability to "talk back", while not guaranteed, may be made significantly more likely, if only due to the fact that one's rhetorical skills are unlikely to be rendered worthless in the face of physical threats? To illustrate the extent to which the illocutionary force of hate speech may be undermined by the spatial and temporal character of virtual environments, I draw attention to Reverend Phelps's "godhatesfags.com" site. Once you move past the yellow construction sign reading "Warning -- Gospel Preaching Ahead", you discover a list of Bible Passages which apparently confirm the site's claim that "god hates fags". The site also contains a list of so-called "fag churches" and a variety of news items that draw attention to the supposed dangers of the growing global gay agenda. However, while the Website is clearly offensive, it also seems to produce the possibility for politically promising misinterpretations. The Website's editorials on subjects as diverse as Canada's "gay Mafia" and Finland's allegedly lesbian Prime Minister and news about Phelps's intention to carry out "missionary work" in both of these demonic nations seems more likely to amuse than offend many of the site's visitors. The site's tendency to misinterpellate everyone from lesbians to P-FLAG mothers as "fags" may be read as another amusing misfire, another failed attempt on the part of Phelps to demonise gays, lesbians, and their supporters. While Phelps's claims are bound to misfire in any context, the ability to find Phelps's claims immediately humourous appears to be at least partially linked to their context. People who seek to prohibit hate speech not only on the basis of what it says but also on the basis of what it does typically maintain that the effects of hate speech are immediate, final, and ultimately, debilitating (Langston; MacKinnon; Matsuda et al.). In cyberspace, such claims appear to be even less easily established than in the material world. As previously argued, the speed associated with virtual environments seems to produce a disorienting effect, making the potential to suffer a "loss of context" in the face of a linguistic "attack" at least less likely. In addition, in contrast to the material world, where an encounter with hate speech is likely to lead to a feeling of entrapment if not complete debilitation, cyberspace invests people with an unprecedented degree of mobility. As a result, in sharp contrast to the experience one might have encountering Phelps's message in a public space near their home, the person who encounters Phelps's message online, where neither proximity nor distance hold their traditional values, can escape both quickly and with little effort. However, it is also important to consider the extent to which the speed associated with virtual spaces may also affect the pace at which potentially injurious words, images, and ideas are recirculated and recontextualised. Building on Butler, I have emphasised that hate speech is always repeatable speech. If we take for granted the fact that cyberspace not only increases the amount of speech generated but also the rate at which such speech is recontextualised and redeployed, it would appear as if the potential exists both for the amount of hate speech in circulation to increase and for such speech to be repeated more often and more rapidly. If we further accept the claim that the repetition of hate speech is always an imperfect one, bound to result in some loss of meaning or minor transgression, it becomes possible to see how this highly indeterminable context may also enable hate speech to be reclaimed more quickly. Once again, "godhatesfags.com" serves as a useful example. Shortly after Phelps's Website appeared, online monitoring organisations, including Hate Watch, established direct links to the site. The link between Hate Watch and "godhatesfags.com" not only serves to place Phelps's online activities under surveillance but also to recontextualise the site. Viewed through their link, Phelps's site is quite literally framed by the Hate Watch site, and subsequently, recontextualised by their anti-hate discourse in a surprisingly direct manner. In addition, various features of Phelps's site have also been parodied and appropriated. "Godhatesfigs.com", which among other features includes a list of bible passages which allegedly confirm the Website's claim that "god hates figs", is one such example. The creators of "Godlovesfags.com" gained notoriety when they managed to steal Phelps's domain name and redirect all "godhatesfags" visitors to their counter site for seventy-two hours. "Godhatesphelps" is another site that seeks to parody and repeat aspects of Phelps's message in an effort to reveal the absurd nature of Phelps's claims. Shortly after Phelps's Website appeared, online monitoring organisations, including Hate Watch, established direct links to the site. The link between Hate Watch and "godhatesfags.com" not only serves to place Phelps's online activities under surveillance but also to recontextualise the site. Viewed through their link, Phelps's site is quite literally framed by the Hate Watch site, and subsequently, recontextualised by their anti-hate discourse in a surprisingly direct manner. In addition, various features of Phelps's site have also been parodied and appropriated. "Godhatesfigs.com", which among other features includes a list of bible passages which allegedly confirm the Website's claim that "god hates figs", is one such example. The creators of "Godlovesfags.com" gained notoriety when they managed to steal Phelps's domain name and redirect all "godhatesfags" visitors to their counter site for seventy-two hours. "Godhatesphelps" is another site that seeks to parody and repeat aspects of Phelps's message in an effort to reveal the absurd nature of Phelps's claims. References Austin, J.L. How to Do Things with Words. 15th ed. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997. (Original work published in 1962.) Butler, Judith. Excited Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997. Langston, Rae. Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts. Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993): 293-330. Matsuda, M.J., et al. Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment. San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993. MacKinnon, C. Only Words. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993. Virilio, Paul. "Global Algorithm 1.7: The Silence of the Lambs: Paul Virilio in Conversation (with C.Oliveira)." CTHEORY 1995. 18 June 1999 <http://www.ctheory.com/ga1.7-silence.php>. Virilio, Paul. Open Sky. Trans. J. Rose. New York: Verso, 1997. Virilio, Paul. "Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!" CTHEORY 18.3 (1995). 18 June 1999 <http://www.dds.nl/~n5m/texts/virilio.htm>. Virilio, Paul. Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromololgy. Trans. M. Polizzotti. New York: Semiotext(e), 1986. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Kate Eichhorn. "Cyberhate and Performative Speech in Accelerated Time(s)." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.3 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0006/cyberhate.php>. Chicago style: Kate Eichhorn, "Cyberhate and Performative Speech in Accelerated Time(s)," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 3 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0006/cyberhate.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Kate Eichhorn. (2000) Cyberhate and performative speech in accelerated time(s). M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(3). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0006/cyberhate.php> ([your date of access]).

The role risk taking has played in American history has helped shape current legislation concerning gambling. This thesis attempts to explain the discrepancies in legislation regarding distinct forms of gambling. While casinos are heavily regulated by state and federal laws, most statutes dealing with lotteries strive to regulate the activities of other parties instead of those of the lottery institutions. Incidentally, lotteries are the only form of gambling completely managed by the government. It can be inferred that the United States government is more concerned with people exploiting gambling than with the actual practice of wagering. In an effort to more fully understand the gambling debate, whether it should be allowed or banned, I examined different types of sources. Historical sources demonstrate how ingrained in American culture risk taking, the core of gambling, has been since the formation of this nation. Sources dealing with the economic implications of gambling were also studied. Additionally, sources dealings with the political and legal aspects of gambling were essential for this thesis. Legislature has tried to reconcile distinct problems associated with gambling, including corruption. For this reason sports gambling scandals and Mafia connections to gambling have also been examined. The American government has created much needed legislature to address different concerns relating to gambling. It is apparent that statutes will continue to be passed to help regulate the gambling industry. A possible consideration is the legalization of sports wagering to better regulate that sector of the industry.