An essay about another American autocrat: Frank Rizzo
This man was elevated from police commissioner to Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. I knew him very casually and peripherally after his heyday but while was again running for mayor after a hiatus.
Rizzo was a product of white South Philadelphia, with the concomitant street smarts, shrewdness, lack of formal education, and bigotry. He spoke like a cinematic mobster and was never without a strong opinion on any matter. Many progressives thought he was an idiot, barely literate, racist.
He was many things, but no idiot. He once said to a very influential acquaintance of mine, “I love it when people think I’m stupid.” He was anything but: he knew exactly how everything functioned and what the knee-jerk reactions to his statements and policies would be. He remembered everyone he ever met: I have a personal story about that and it has been said that Nixon had the same talent. He could be utterly ruthless and there were many deaths whose causation were never solved. It is said by some that these were individuals who either did not heed direct warnings or refused to acknowledge that there was a “system” in place. He was a tinhorn Mussolini. When he died -on a toilet in a building across the street from my office - he was given a State funeral with a cortège and hundreds of cars following.
Unlike Orangina, he was not grotesquely greedy or self-involved. He had wonderful relationships with his acolytes and never put up with people fawning over him in that slimy fashion practiced by our present Cabinet members. He was pragmatic, down to earth, and did not rely on spinmeisters or spokespeople.
He divided this city terribly: it was more racially polarized than it had ever been and things were bad and dangerous for everyone. He single-handedly ruined the Bicentennial by publicly stating that he expected protests and rioters and was going to request regular Army troops from then-President Nixon, years before the event. (The funny part there is that he wanted the troops to carry sidearms rather than rifles with or without fixed bayonets and did not know that there was no issue of sidearms for the infantry. Every veteran in the region laughed at him). It was a turbulent time.
Now the point that I’m trying to make through this wordy introduction is that the name for individuals who voted for him was Rizzocrats. He was a party of one. He didn’t care about any other elected officials in the virtually completely Democratic City Council. These egocentric individuals have no interest in anyone but themselves. Witness what Trump did to Senator Cornyn. There is no question that Rizzo had the police surveillance files on many of the elected officials and threatened them in much the same way that some believe that Republicans are threatened by this Administration.
How do I know this? Grace Kelly, later Princess Grace of Monaco had a brother John Kelly, Jr. he was a member of the Philadelphia aristocracy: Olympic champion rower from the Vesper Boat Club, City Councilman at-large for many years and man about town. He was considering running for mayor against Rizzo so Rizzo himself called Kelly’s mother and told her that if her son Jack declared his candidacy, he would release the file containing very very personal matters which would have destroyed his candidacy immediately. You all know what I’m talking about.
It was common knowledge that this had occurred. It was Rizzo politics at its core. But you know, when he died there was no party, no honking of horns. People who despised him would grudgingly admit that he was an effective, powerful, ruthless politician who was a Philadelphia fixture. The fact that the statue of him many years later was hidden away is never discussed in public anymore.
I look forward to the juxtaposition with Orangina’s departure from the mortal coil. It will be unimaginable in scope.
P.S. Jack Kelly died in a very mysterious fashion. One Sunday morning he went out for a jog and did not return home. Many hours later he was identified in the morgue where he had been transported as a John Doe . Weirdly, his ex-brother-in-law died at the same time of “natural causes”. Another “funny thing” is that there wasn’t a single mature adult in Philadelphia who wouldn’t recognize this man. The odds of even a few individuals who handled the body not knowing who he was are low. But…who knows?? If I continue in this vein, I will be branded a conspiracy theorist. God forbid.
I thank you for your attention in this matter. 😳
= new reply since forum marked as read
