Readers Write: South Philly For McCain Group Not So Much With The Courage, The Truth, Or The Not-Forgetting Where You Came From
Yesterday I was out back with my dog as I heard dweeby political canvassers discussing my Obama sign (I know dweeby canvassers having been one myself for Obama). I figured they were either canvasing for a local pol or Obama, and trying to determine whether it was worth their time to knock on my door as I already had a sign. I live in Girard Estates which is an almost exclusively a white Middle Class neighborhood.Turns out these pussies left a South Philly for McCain door knocker on my door. Now I am not just calling them pussies because they are McCain supporters, here are the facts:
1) They didn’t knock but left literature any way because they saw my sign.
2) If they weren’t pussies they would be fighting the 9/11 in Iraq, instead of knocking on my door&
3) No way do the Pussies go to a neighborhood like say Point Breeze with that bullshit. If the Pussies had knocked I would have had the opportunity to tell them to fuck off, and that the only reason they were here was to exploit the racism some people in my neighborhood have that I witnessed first hand while canvasing for obama.
Click on knocker to enlarge.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
The McCain people in Philly seem to be just phoning it in as a whole (not that I really blame them).
I got a call last week that went like this:
“Hi, uh…Is Susan Al…[mumble] there?”
“No you have the wrong number.”
“Oh well I guess anyway…Is there any way i could talk you into voting for McCain?”
“Nope.”
“Oh ok nevermind then.”
It was a very convincing argument.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
The real racial subtext here is old South Philly Italians vs. new South Philly Vietnamese.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
Doesn’t look like Dremesi particularly cares for being mentioned in McCain campaign literature, or the South Philly for McCain people should do a bit more research on their adopted McCain surrogate (who below doesn’t look like he’d appreciate the association):
At Fort McNair, an army base located along the Potomac River in the nation’s capital, a chance reunion takes place one day between two former POWs. It’s the spring of 1974, and Navy commander John Sidney McCain III has returned home from the experience in Hanoi that, according to legend, transformed him from a callow and reckless youth into a serious man of patriotism and purpose. Walking along the grounds at Fort McNair, McCain runs into John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was also imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.
McCain is studying at the National War College, a prestigious graduate program he had to pull strings with the Secretary of the Navy to get into. Dramesi is enrolled, on his own merit, at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in the building next door.
There’s a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a “confession” to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn’t survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service’s highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as “one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met.”
On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.
“I’m going to the Middle East,” Dramesi says. “Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran.”
“Why are you going to the Middle East?” McCain asks, dismissively.
“It’s a place we’re probably going to have some problems,” Dramesi says.
“Why? Where are you going to, John?”
“Oh, I’m going to Rio.”
“What the hell are you going to Rio for?”
McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.
“I got a better chance of getting laid.”
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. “McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man,” Dramesi says today. “But he’s still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in.”
From Rolling Stone “Make Believe Maverick”:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print
Also, according to this POW bio, it’s unclear whether Dramesi is really “from Philly”:
http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/d/d059.htm
Lot of good people in South Philly, but there are some holdouts of the Rizzo mythology “when things were right” or whatever who just seem to live in an alternative universe.
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 am
OK, so they’re saying that living in South Philly is like being in a Vietnamese POW camp? Or just that living in South Philly is good preparation if you ever are going to end up in a Vietnamese POW camp?