Customer Reviews

While the Music Lasts: My Life in Politics

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and felt the most important aspect of it was the succinct way in which Mr Bulger argued the case for the aversion that the various neighborhoods of Boston (particularly South Boston) had for forced busing. I have not lived in Boston for 7 years now but did whilst most of the problems with busing and its aftermath existed, and I found the book to be an important reminder of just how intimidating that period was for the average citizen. It was in the midst of a particularly oppressive recession, the end of the Vietnam war, Watergate.....generally a time in which trust in the government and America's place in the world, all appeared to be under threat. The imposition of forced busing brought this very feeling of society's unravelling right to our doorsteps. I think Mr Bulger's book served as a very important personal reminder to me of that time in our lives. I am proud of the fact that he was able to set the record straight, in favour of the good citizens of Boston who were unfairly treated by the courts and the media of the time. The anecdotes were great and were tied together favourably in a chronological order that made it easy to follow. It was a great book to read leisurely ( I read it while traveling over the course of two weeks)

The Bulger book was also very good, but somehow less profound. If books by governors are rare, books by state legislators are all but unknown. This is too bad. Bulger has some great stories. He's at his best when he's telling them about some of the characters of South Boston with names like "Knocko McCormack" and "The Good Robb," as well as less interestingly named Massachusetts politicians. Bulger's stories about campaigns and legislative battles are great, as are his accounts of a few vacations he took and clients he took on as a lawyer. The book has added punch because Bulger holds nothing back in describing various political opponents from four decades in politics. He seems to go to great length to name as many names as possible, and explain in as much detail about the shortcomings of the people with those names. If I knew who some of these characters were, the book would be more interesting still, but Bulger is descriptive enough to make his characters come to life.

He's at his worst when describing a few longer accounts about incidents towards which he is still very bitter including his fight against bussing in Boston and his defense against allegations of corruption. Here Bulger indulges in a level of thoroughness that seems more designed to construct an irrefutable argument than an interesting story. His sense humor, which is the book's strength elsewhere, is often absent here.

Another weakness is that Bulger basically only tells the story of one battle to pass a bill. While his stories about campaigns and scandals are interesting, they are not especially unique - but this is one of the only memoirs ever written by a state legislator, I would have liked to have read more about legislating.

I read the book very swiftly. I liked Bulger, though I get the sense that I would have frequently been at odds with him if I was active in Massachusetts politics during his time. On the whole, the book was very enjoyable and instructive on state politics.

As a Delaware state representative, I read this book originally as a fellow practioner hoping to glean some lessons of political leadership. Bulger offers many valuable insights into the art of advancing issues and working with people in a political environment. Aside from my collegial interest, the book is extremely well written, eloquently styled and full of anecdotes which serve to illustrate the author's points. However, like almost all politicians I have become familiar with, I assume there are two or three really good chapters about his art that he was tempted to write but decided not to allowing for his current public position and desired legacy. That being said, the book is insightful, honest and presents a good picture of inside politics by one who knew where he stood on most issues and understands the use of power.

Possessing a rare accurate portrayal of life in South Boston, the highly anecdotal work: 'WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS: My Life In Politics' (c. 1996) by William M. Bulger, Esq.; also contained insight into the advantages and disadvantages of the political process inside the Massachusetts Statehouse during his twenty-seven year tenure as elected State Senator and Senate President.

While maintaining a good sense of humor throughout a serious work, Mr. Bulger was also not afraid to expouse on the gritty fundamentals of political reality as experienced in a working-class neighborhood or the shrewd choices required for political success. Based on his considerable political experiences, Mr. Bulger defined leadership as a "catalytic function" (p.71). "The leader" explained Mr. Bulger "is not a captain with power to command ... but must navigate in ways acceptable to the majority" (p.72).

Almost written as a biography, the memoir: WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS described the Bulger family's 1938 move into South Boston when the author was just four years old, and the family's twenty-three year experiences with the residents of the Old Harbor Projects. It was in this working-class neighborhood of South Boston where Mr. Bulger found his life's calling and pursued politics as more than a career. A consummate politician, and loyal to the Neighborhood, Mr. Bulger was the right man at the wrong time when forced busing was decreed regarding "Alleged segregation in our schools,..."(p.108).

Containing a well-founded criticism of media activists and newspapers, particularly the tendentious 'Boston Globe', the book: WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS described the 1964 Supreme Court decision in 'Sullivan v. The New York Times' which shifted the burden of proof to the victim of libel to prove their own innocence - essentially a requirement to prove a negative! This gave the media activists and the various left-winged interlopers who poured into South Boston during the first year of forced busing a license to lie with virtual impunity! Thus freely bashing South Boston and its residents with limited restraint, a virtual torrent of politically-correct vitriol was unleashed against concerned parents and elected representatives: (please read: DEATH AT AN EARLY AGE (c. 1966) by Jonathan Kozol as an example of this unrestrained propaganda).

Certain omissions were the only short-coming of this work, as Mr. Bulger listed at length the colorful nick-names of Neighborhood residents while omitting Ray Flynn's Southie nickname of 'MEL' Flynn (and why he earned it). Also omitted was the mentioning of the 274 Afro-American families living and attending schools in South Boston prior to the forced busing decree, or the small colony of Mic Mac Indians living down on E. 3rd Street (between G and K), or the majority of South Boston Polish, Italian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Greek, Czech, Albanian, and German ethnic groups (whom the racists would label 'white') which reduced the Irish presence to a mere vocal minority. While he correctly mentioned that the "Racial Imbalance Law was not an extension of the civil rights struggle ... but a device to accomplish forced busing" (p.131) Mr. Bulger further omitted mentioning that in 1996 the entire Boston Public Schools were (and still are) 86% black & hispanic in egregious violation of the Racial Imbalance Act, yet nothing is being done to alleviate this massive segregation! Mr. Bulger had correctly described the forced busing collectivization as a "misuse of State power!" (p.119).

Standing as a testament to grace under pressure, the memoir: WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS is also a pragmatic manual on how to build a political organization from scratch; how to deal with a forty-member state senate; the realities of passing a bill into law; what to expect from media activists; and the first hand account of the clash between positive and natural law (the war between the judiciary & legislature)as intimately witnessed by the author following the 1974 forced busing debacle in Boston. Yet it is true that forced busing still exists in Boston under the oxymoron: "Controlled Choice." Today in 21st century Boston you are still forced by court decree to send your children to substandard schools in unsafe neighborhoods at taxpayers expense!

A compilation of reference, biography, expose', memoir, and political savvy, the insightful work: 'WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS: My Life In Politics' by William M. Bulger, Esq., should be required reading in any Political Science, Philosophy, Ethics, or Law course in college.

Mr. Bulger, much maligned by our local press in Mass, comes through bigtime. Once and for all, our people are given access to his wit, wisdom, and experience, and, quite frankly, it is a refreshing break from the moronic politicians garb we endure as a nation today.

I enjoyed this book immensely. The drama that unfolds is well described, and the prose is precise without being onerous. This book captures the spirit of Tip O'Neill's "All politics are local", and the manner in which Bulger and other politicians gain support and ply their craft is truly a view into the grass roots of politics, not as a gimic but as the way it had to be done. The characters are a colorful part of the times in which the simple act of standing out with a sign or declaring your support for a candidate to the people at the bus stop was important, raising the everyday citizen to the master of the political process.

All I have to say is that this book was excellent. This man has been an inspiration to me throughout my teenage years to the present. Anyone who reads this cannot deny the fact that this man is an inspiration to all. He has done so many good things for the people of Massachusetts. He has risen out of the shadow of his brother and succeeded, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. This book was well written and very descriptive of his life and the lives of all the people of South Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Read it and you will see, trust me.

Former Massachusetts State Senate President William Bulger's autobiography provides readers insights into the inner workings of his state's politics and into legislative affairs. In addition, it provides many personal insights into the rise of a man from a working class South Boston neighborhood to legislative leadership.
A primary lesson Senator Bulger wishes to convey is that politicians should be driven by their believe they can make a difference. They should continue at politics "while the music lasts" and they can still hear that music that lets them know they can create the changes for which they fight.
Mr. Bulger's advice to legislators is to learn facts and data when arguing the merits of their proposals. He believes good research is more valuable than good rhetoric. He recommends that legislators avoid creating divisions amongst their peers and to avoid choosing sides too soon when these divisions occur. For that reason, he followed a rule of avoiding discussing divisions with the media, whom he believes fuels these divisions. Senator Bulger was a practitioner of the art of compromise, although he states taht moral principle should always come first.
The book provides a good description of the two year fight Senator Bulger had in passing key child care legislation. Part of his struggle included withdrawing his name as sponsor in order to pick up votes to pass it. The book also provides the author's insights into the very heated school busing issue.
This book is a great resource for readers wishing to learn more about the legislative process, about Massachusetts politics, or the insights of a colorful politician from South Boston.

Do not be misled by the title or the cover of this work. While there are moments of hilarity in this book, there is a tragic quality to the life of William Bulger that extends even beyond the publishing of this book in 1996. The author made news within the past year when he was dismissed from the presidency of the University of Massachusetts, a personal disgrace with roots in both Massachusetts politics and the author's intractability.

William Bulger was a career Massachusetts politician, making his first run for the Massachusetts house of representatives in 1960. Eventually he would serve seventeen years as president of the Massachusetts Senate, no mean feat in that state's Byzantine political culture, until he assumed the reins of the University of Massachusetts at about the time of the publishing of this book. He was a product of the self-contained community of South Boston, a neighborhood of modest incomes, generally good folks, and thoroughly marinated in the Irish sauce of religion, politics, and penny ante corruption. At an early age Bulger discovered the circus element of politics and what passed for dirty tricks in the 1940's. He tells genuinely funny stories of political mishaps he witnessed as a child. The best, in my view, is the tale of the perennially soused postman who is scared sober by a horse in a third story apartment--the animal having been abandoned there by a political candidate with a cash flow problem.

Bulger does not dramatize his Herculean efforts to get himself, penniless, into Boston College High School, and subsequently through BC's law school, with an army tenure in between. It is somewhat more difficult to assess his description of his older brother, Jim. Bulger describes him as bright, somewhat oppositional, and unstructured. Juvenile delinquency eventually would progress into armed robbery. Bulger suggests that police brutality and bad companions contributed to his downfall, which eventually led him to Alcatraz. Bulger denies knowledge of his brother's subsequent activities, though the FBI would press the author years later. In 2003 the Republican Governor, Mitch Romney, removed the author from his university position on the grounds of his suspected association with his brother and hindering criminal investigation.

Marrying the woman in 1960 who would bear his nine children, Bulger entered state politics as a traditional Massachusetts progressive of the 1960's: he believed in government's role to improve the hundreds of neighborhood communities like his own. One of his particular interests was stricter interventions for abused or neglected children. State representatives like Bulger knew their constituencies intimately and their offices were as much social service centers to assist in employment and local quality of life. Bulger was a horse trader, to be sure, but he viewed the process as a necessary evil. It was never a matter of the thrill of the hunt, as it was for Lyndon Johnson, for example. Bulger was living proof of Tip O'Neill's dictum that all politics are ultimately local.

The great wound of Bulger's political and personal life was his limited understanding of the American revolution of the 1960's, specifically the Civil Rights movement. For the old school politician Bulger, his responsibility lie with South Boston. The plight of neighboring Roxbury was, in his mind, the responsibility of citizens and politicians in that community. The idea that federal law and the judiciary would override local political structures, and worse, that such interference would be undertaken arrogantly and in the guise of social engineering appalled Bulger, who maintains to this day that the excesses of the judiciary destroyed his beloved South Boston.

The villains of this work are Judge W. Arthur Garrity and, to a lesser extent, The Boston Globe. Garrity's name may ring a bell with older readers, particularly if paired with that of Louise Day Hicks, a Bulger compatriot, in the context of school busing. At the time of the Boston busing crisis, 1974, the national news coverage depicted neighborhoods like South Boston as bastions of Jim Crow separatism. As a lawyer and resident of South Boston, Bulger was deeply troubled by what he first perceived as judicial social engineering; later, he became more incensed by the intimidating tactics of riot police in the streets of his own neighborhood. Looking back thirty years, Garrity's judicial excesses are troubling, and the acquiescence of the Globe most disappointing.

Having said that, it must also be admitted that Bulger's limited comprehension of civil rights and social policy probably contributed to the problem. He admits that the schools in Roxbury were a nightmare, but he adopts the attitude that Athens has nothing to say to Jerusalem. This is the price of parochialism, the inability to see that racism, as a national problem, could not be addressed piecemeal like filling potholes after a bad winter. As a politician, he did not see this freight train approaching, a reality that, I suspect, fuels his bitterness of those bad days.

That Bulger survived the 1970's and would rise to become his state's kingmaker for many years is a tribute to the author's doggedness; had Bulger resigned during the heyday of Gerrity's excesses, no one would have second-guessed him. But he remained, continuing such traditions as his annual St. Patrick's Day breakfast, a must for every politician on the make, even the Kennedys. He was not exactly loved by his peers, but seems to have been respected. His consistency as much as anything kept Massachusetts government functioning as efficiently as it did. He was as ethical as his circumstances permitted, and despised political arrangements that did not pass the smell test. It is sad to note that a career like Bulger's ended under the shadows that it did.

This book is rather hard going for someone who is unfamiliar with the history of the author and the politics of his state. It is however readable despite these problems.

It is not entirely clear what if anything the author stood for in his time in politics. The main discussion in the book concerns the authors opposition to the busing issue. Whilst to people outside America busing seemed a socially progressive move one can understand how it would have disrupted a local community and how there would be opposition to it.

The writer however is a good hater. With the busing issue and with his conflict with Alan Desrhowitz he can certainly dish out the abuse. In doing so he tends to lose the reader as it is not clear exactly has led to the torrent of abuse.

It would appear that the author was also a "controversial politician". A good deal of the book is devoted to discussing various corruption scandals and putting forward innocent explanations of various things.

It is a shame that the writer does not put in more background so that the readers who live outside the north east of the United States know what he was going on about. If the book contained that information it would be a valuable insight into a colorful and interesting character.