Green Dragon Tavern
A place to sit down with a couple of pints of ale and wax subversive.
Organizer:
- Organized by
-
-
How to Destroy a Culture….
-
How to Destroy a Culture….
Greetings Taverneers, Way back in Old Testament days, Dateline: 733 BC, Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and deported the 10 tribes of Hebrews who inhabited it, scattering them to the four corners of the globe (as it was known in that day and time; I mean no Hebrews were sent to Mexico, Greenland, or Australia.) Consequently the Samaritans (remember Jesus’ story of “The Good Samaritan?” A term we still use today) were moved in by the Assyrians to replace the expelled Hebrews. The Assyrians weren’t taking any chances of nationalistic uprising or resistance, when they relocated their conquered peoples to new places with no cultural tie backs…nothing to feel nationalistic about. Dateline: 597-582 BC, Babylon conquered the Southern Kingdom of Judah, sacked their sacred temple, and deported the remaining two tribes of Hebrews to Babylon in three waves. The psychological consequences of such entire national relocation is expressed poignantly in the Psalms: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How shall we sing the LORD’S (Yahweh’s) song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137: 1-4). Caleb and Wayward Son spoke of a classical cultural iconic building being allowed to burn down (the Lodge of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon), so some modern “expression” of the building can replace it. Another part of the national culture just gone. My home town is Mt. Airy, NC, the fictional TV town of “Mayberry” (Andy Griffith was born here). When I moved away, in the mid 1970’s, the population was around 7,000. When I moved back in 1989, and the population had remained the same. Since then, the population has grown to 10,000, perhaps due to the influx of Hispanic people, who work [damn hard too] to grow and harvest our agricultural crops. For the overwhelming most part, they have been an asset to our community, real good neighbors, so the only ice I like is the kind that goes in my tea. Because no way in hell, are Gringo kids these days going to do the work…. But I digress. Bear with the following travelogue, there is a point here. The nearest city to our town is Winston Salem, which is 35 miles to the South, connecting to us via US Highway 52. From Winston Salem, I-40 goes another 20+ miles to the East to Greensboro, which is a much larger city, and the gateway to the “Research Triangle,” comprised of Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh, NC. To get to Greensboro from Mt. Airy, we’d travel South on 52 to I-40, which on a slow day is super congested, and often slowed to a crawl by traffic. Recently a new Interstate Highway has come to be, I-74. A new I-74 cutoff from US 52, north of Winston (before the traffic gets bad), over to I-40 just outside of Greensboro, which cuts the trip from Mt. Airy from 1 hour + down to 45-50 minutes, with no traffic slowdowns. “Well, thanks for the driving directions Dana, but what’s that got to do with the Assyrians and the ruined Lodge at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon? Have you dug out your bong again?” Well, not quite; it has been said by some big money people around here, that the I-74 cutoff wasn’t to make it more convenient for us coming from Mt. Airy to get from Greensboro. No, the intent is to make Mt. Airy a new bedroom community for Doctors, Lawyers, and Indian Chiefs working in Greensboro, with the intent of doubling the population of Mt. Airy to 20,000 people (not from here or Latin America), increasing the tax base to unaffordable levels for current residents, most of whom are blue collar and middle class, and erasing the quaint culture we have known and loved from way before I was born. As I said following Tennessee Jim’s call to the podcast today, developers are buying up and bulldozing land like it’s a life or death mandate, and building apartments and condos to fill up the spaces. This isn’t only happening here in our neck of the woods. And why? So the uber rich can starve the long time natives out of their home lands (buying properties for pennies on the dollar once no one will be able to afford the taxes), and remake the culture in their own high tech corporate image. They’re talking data centers too. Amazon just opened a distribution center in Mt. Airy…like there’s going to be a need for it to serve a much greater population. There’s a reason St. John called the world system hostile to everybody and everything decent and good by the name “Babylon.” So welcome to Babylon…it’s coming, like it or not.
-
This discussion was modified 2 weeks, 4 days ago by
Dana Acker.
-
This discussion was modified 2 weeks, 4 days ago by
-
3 Replies
-
Yeah, they are building up southern NH too. There’s a massive target dist center being built on the old golf coarse in my town. It destroys community.
-
Yes, it does, my Friend, it certainly does. I believe that’s the goal.
-
-
✅ Go to Dearborn, Michigan.
Log in to reply.