Green Dragon Tavern
A place to sit down with a couple of pints of ale and wax subversive.
Organizer:
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It Can’t Happen Here….
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It Can’t Happen Here….
Mike keeps comparing the conditions in which we find ourselves today here in the USSA with “third world hellholes.” There are many people in this country who would take extreme umbrage with that. One of the side effects of Thomas Paine/True Pundit/Paine.TV is the assault on and destruction of one’s illusions. Perhaps “side effects” isn’t the right word, as it usually refers to something negative at the least, and dire to deadly at the worst. Results, or even just effects would be better.
We all live with illusions. We love our illusions. We’re quite comfortable with them. Then one’s path crosses someone like Mike, who just throat punches said illusions, and while they are down, gasping for air, he kicks them in family jewels. And it hurts. It’s not at all pleasant…but it’s freeing. It’s liberating. Once the Google Glass goggles are lying on the floor, smashed in pieces, it’s amazing how quickly and how clearly one learns to see.
British author Talbot Mundy wrote about the difference between believing and knowing. I paraphrase, but Mundy said if you believe something, you can come to disbelieve that same something. Anybody still putting a pulled tooth under your pillow in hopes of finding a quarter, (or a dollar to adjust for inflation) under the same pillow, and the tooth magically vanished? However, if you know something, you cannot unknow it. Having one’s illusions shattered opens the door between belief and knowledge. And knowledge is where it’s at.
MAGA, while creating the illusion of a new and improved “land of the free and home of the brave,” in and of itself reminds us that “…we ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto,” hence implication of the word “Again.” Seriously, doesn’t “Make America Great Again” now just sound hollow?
Returning to “third world hellholes,” once while in Southern Mexico, a friend of mine got arrested. He was thrown into a cell roughly 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. He shared the cell with eight other hombres. Each prisoner was given a sheet of newspaper for a mattress/blanket and an empty 2 liter soda pop bottle (with the lid) for a pillow. There was one 5 gallon plastic bucket for a toilet for the nine inmates to share. This cell was inside a high walled police compound, that closed at midnight Saturday night, and didn’t reopen until 8:00 AM Tuesday morning when arraignment occurred. The police (all of them) left the compound at midnight Saturday, locked the gate in the wall, and left the place completely devoid of personnel (with the exception of the prisoners locked in the aforementioned cell) until Tuesday AM. One’s family, should they care or have the wherewithal, could bring their incarcerated relative food and water (only until midnight Saturday) as they were not provided by the constabulary. Neither were telephone calls nor access to attorneys allowed until Tuesday AM.
But that’s Mexico, right. That can’t happen here, can it? I mean we have “country club prisons.” But they’re for the “haves.” And what about prisons that have libraries, job opportunities, weight rooms, and canteens for snacks? Our prisons aren’t like the jail I described in Mexico.
John B. Wells, on his program, focused a lot of attention on the Cliven Bundy case, which I brought up in the “Will the Real BLM Please Stand Up” discussion here on The Green Dragon Tavern group. There were updates provided by the Bundy family as to the details of Mr. Bundy’s and his son’s incarceration after the standoff. They reported abysmal jail conditions and deprivation suffered by their imprisoned family members…right here in the land of nice prisons. What was that song Waylon Jennings sang, “There Ain’t No Good Chain Gangs?” Mike’s played it before, and I apologize if I got any of the details wrong.
Didn’t the Patriot Act allow for the suspension of writ of habeous corpus under certain conditions…like being on the wrong side? If we really think “it can’t happen here,” perhaps it’s time for a good ol’ fashioned Mike Moore illusion shatterin’ session. Might be advisable before any of us, per chance, end up on the wrong side of the bars….
OK, lest we forget, this is the Green Dragon TAVERN, and I’m ready for a drink. Salud!
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4 Replies
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Make that “habeas corpus.” I stand corrected. It’s late, and I’m thirsty, not that those are valid excuses for my poor Latin spelling.
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Fear is Incomplete Knowledge — Agatha Christie
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Good dog, Spot! Good dog!
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…or is that Good cat?
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