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Gaddafi and Philadelphia

Some say Gaddafi and the Philadelphia Democratic machine might be a match made in…. well, wherever…

8 comments to Gaddafi and Philadelphia

  • Laird

    That is priceless! Having lived in Philadelphia I can attest that it rings true. I hope this gets wide circulation. Thanks for sharing it.

  • renminbi

    This is true for any city over a few hundred thousand in a blue state. If you have a large negro population,they will almost invariably elect crooks. That may sound “racist”,but one can’t argue with the facts. Anyone from the community pointing this out is called an Uncle Tom.

    Best illustration:
    http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/21834.html#comments

    and QED:

    http://www.bentonharborcity.com/comm.html

  • Dom

    “If you have a large negro population,they will almost invariably elect crooks.”

    Only Washington could elect a known drug dealer / drug user as mayor. Does anyone even remember the poor guy who lost to this crack-head?

  • Dale Amon

    Nope. Don’t buy it. If you want to say anywhere with a poor inner city population, yes. That would cover the totally corrupt and thoroughly Irish Tammany Hall machine of NYC in the 19th century as well as Bud Daley’s Chicago of the mid 20th century and other utterly corrupt political ‘machines’ of US history. You’re just commenting on some of the new comers to the fleecing party. The Irish and Italians have had a good long run at it.

  • Right On Dale !

    However there are crooks and there are incompetent crooks. The Daley machine was (or is) and example of competent crooks. Willie Brown’s machine in San Francisco is another example of competent crookery. So is the machine that runs Atlanta.

    Philly, DC and Detroit are all textbook examples of incompetent crooks.

  • Paul Marks

    The black population of Philadelphia used to be very conservative and had some of the best newspapers in the United States.

    Of course the Republican machine of Philadelphia was corrupt (as the left teach in their schools and universities – and in Wikpedia and …..) but it was also LOW tax and LOW regulation, even in the 1930s (when statism was already in control in Chicago and New York).

    Actually it was white reformers (rich ex Republicans – rich “country club”) types who created the “new Philadelphia” in the 1950s

    And the new Philadelphia has proved to be total mess.

    If history teaching was honest (I know “if pigs had wings”) everyone would know that the “old Philadelphia” (the low tax, low regulation Philadelphia) was much better.

    Even in terms of corruption – after all when government has less money there is less to steal, and where there are fewer regulations there is less need to bribe officials and politicians.

  • Paul Marks

    I will share my favourite Philadelphia corruption story – not about the Mayor who bombed the block (actually he had some justification for doing that – it was his massive increases in government spending that I object to), but a much less serious thing…

    I have heard from several people that back in 1976 there was a pool game in a Philadelphia bar – a pool game for VOTES.

    The bar owner controlled a local polling station (he was a Democrat official/local organised crime person) and he had the polling machine set up to record votes (more than were actually cast) for Carter’s rival in the Democrat primary.

    A Carter poll watcher objected to this – and the man challenged her to a game of pool (the lady was from Mass and so was not a legal poll watcher anyway, under Pennsylvania law).

    Well the lady won the game – and the bar owner (and…..) was a man of his word, and gave the votes to Carter. Who knows which way the locals actually voted – no one really cared about that.

    I like to think this story is true – it is a rather innocent form of corruption.

    Something like that would not happen in Chicago – they are far more serious (all the factions there). Just as dishonest – but no sense of humour.