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Welcome back, my friends, to the "Battle" that never ends.
We're so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside!
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This is 'BATTLE OF THE BANDS' ('BOTB') where you listen to different recordings and vote for the one you like best. A new Battle gets posted on the 1st of each month and on the 7th, I place my own vote, tally 'em all up and announce the winner.
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Friend? Foe? Stranger? No matter, ALL are welcome. So pull up a chair, pour yourself 24 oz. of DOG BITE High Gravity Lager (or the poison of your choice) and turn it up to Eleven!
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[NOTE: Links to the first year of 'BOTB' (#1 - #24) can be found at the very bottom of this page.]

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

THANKSGIVING DAY (Or, 7th GAME OF THE WORLD SERIES AND WHAT PLAY WILL YOU MAKE?)

AMERICA: WHERE WE WERE AND...
WHERE WE ARE.

It's the Seventh Game of the World Series... it's also the Eleventh Hour of America's existence. Are we thankful for what we had? Or thankful for the chance to prolong the 7th game of the World Series in the 11th hour?


Here's the National Anthem (no words necessary) celebrating England's continued inability to destroy American independence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hHisW49nJE


That was then and this is now. (Following is an article just sent to me by a friend. The one thing I'd dispute is the idea that tyranny at home and anarchy throughout the world haven't yet arrived. HELL-O?!)

I've not verified John's every point, but I know for a fact that at the very least, in the main, he's very correct!

This Thanksgiving, Let’s Say ‘No Thanks’ To The Tyranny Of The American Police State

By John W. Whitehead
November 23, 2015


“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.” —Daniel Webster
Thanksgiving is not what it once was.

Then again, America is not what she once was.

Americans have become so enthralled by the “bread and circuses” of our age—tables groaning under the weight of an abundance of rich foods, televisions tuned to sports and entertainments spectacles, stores competing for Black Friday shoppers, and a general devotion to excess and revelry—that we have lost sight of the true purpose of Thanksgiving.

Indeed, the following is a lesson in how far we have traveled—and how low we have fallen—in the more than 200 years since George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation, calling upon the nation to give thanks for a government whose purpose was ensuring the safety and happiness of its people and for a Constitution designed to safeguard civil and religious liberty.

This Thanksgiving finds us saddled with a government that is a far cry from Washington’s vision of a government that would be a blessing to all the people:

  • governed by wise, just and constitutional laws
  • faithfully executed and obeyed by its agents
  • assisting foreign nations with good government, peace, and concord
  • promoting true religion, virtue and science
  • and enabling temporal prosperity
 
Instead, as the following shows, the U.S. government has become a warring empire, governed by laws that are rash, unjust and unconstitutional, policed by government agents who are corrupt, hypocritical and abusive, a menace to its own people, and the antithesis of everything for which Washington hoped.
George Washington didn’t intend Thanksgiving to be a day for offering up glib platitudes that require no thought, no effort and no sacrifice. He wanted it to be a day of contemplation, in which we frankly assessed our shortcomings, acknowledged our wrongdoings, and resolved to be a better, more peaceable nation in the year to come.

It is in that true spirit of Thanksgiving that I offer the following list of things for which I’m not thankful about the American police state.

The U.S. has become a corporate oligarchy. As a Princeton University survey indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. We are no longer a representative republic. As such, the citizenry has little if any impact on the policies of government. There are 131 lobbyists to every Senator, reinforcing concerns that the government represents the corporate elite rather than the citizenry.

Americans are being jailed for profit. Imprisoning Americans in private prisons and jails run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business, with states agreeing to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in privately run prisons for at least 20 years. And how do you keep the prisons full? By passing laws aimed at increasing the prison population, including the imposition of life sentences on people who commit minor or nonviolent crimes such as siphoning gasoline. Little surprise, then, that the United States has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners. The government’s tendency towards militarization and overcriminalization, in which routine, everyday behaviors become targets of regulation and prohibition, have resulted in Americans getting arrested for making and selling unpasteurized goat cheese, cultivating certain types of orchids, feeding a whale, holding Bible studies in their homes, and picking their kids up from school.

Endless wars have resulted in a battlefield mindset that is infecting the nation.  The Departments of Justice, Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense have passed off billions of dollars worth of military equipment to local police forces. Even EMS crews and fire fighters are being “gifted” with military tanks, Kevlar helmets and ballistic vests. Police agencies have been trained in the fine art of war. It has become second nature for local police to look and act like soldiers. Communities have become acclimated to the presence of militarized police patrolling their streets. Americans have been taught compliance at the end of a police gun or taser. Lower income neighborhoods have been transformed into war zones. Hundreds if not thousands of unarmed Americans have lost their lives at the hands of police who shoot first and ask questions later. And a whole generation of young Americans has learned to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.

Militarized police, shootings of unarmed citizens, SWAT team raids, misconduct and qualified immunity have transformed the U.S. into a police state.  What we must contend with today is the danger of having a standing army (which is what police forces, increasingly made up of individuals with military backgrounds and/or training, have evolved into) that has been trained to view the citizenry as little more than potential suspects, combatants and insurgents. Despite propaganda to the contrary, it is estimated that U.S. police kill more people in days than other countries do in years. On an average day in America, at least 100 Americans have their homes raided by SWAT teams (although I’ve seen estimates as high as 300 a day), which are increasingly used to deal with routine police matters: angry dogs, domestic disputes, search warrants, etc. Every five days a police officer somewhere in America engages in sexual abuse or misconduct.

The barrier between public and private property has been done away with. Call it what you will—taxes, penalties, fees, fines, regulations, tariffs, tickets, permits, surcharges, tolls, asset forfeitures, foreclosures, etc.—but the only word that truly describes the constant bilking of the American taxpayer by the government and its corporate partners is theft. What Americans don’t seem to comprehend is that if the government can arbitrarily take away your property, without your having much say about it, you have no true rights and no real property. In this way, the police state with all of its trappings—from surveillance cameras, militarized police, SWAT team raids, truancy and zero tolerance policies, asset forfeiture laws, privatized prisons and red light cameras to Sting Ray devices, fusion centers, drones, black boxes, hollow-point bullets, detention centers, speed traps and abundance of laws criminalizing otherwise legitimate conduct—has become little more than a front for a high-dollar covert operation aimed at laundering as much money as possible through government agencies and into the bank accounts of the corporate oligarchy that rule over us.

The technologically-driven surveillance state has become the fourth branch of government. This fourth branch—the NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, etc.—came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC. This age of technological tyranny has been made possible by government secrets, government lies, government spies and their corporate ties. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead. The police state is about to pass off the baton to the surveillance state.

The schools, modeled after quasi-prisons, are churning out future compliant citizens. Within America’s public schools can be found almost every aspect of the American police state that plagues those of us on the “outside”: metal detectors, surveillance cameras, militarized police, drug-sniffing dogs, tasers, cyber-surveillance, random searches, senseless arrests, jail time, the list goes on. Whether it takes the form of draconian zero tolerance policies, overreaching anti-bullying statutes, police officers charged with tasering and arresting so-called unruly children, standardized testing with its emphasis on rote answers, political correctness, or the extensive surveillance systems cropping up in schools all over the country, young people in America are first in line to be indoctrinated into compliant citizens of the new American police state.

The courts have become courts of order in an age of government-sanctioned tyranny. With every ruling handed down by the courts, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice, with government courts, largely lacking in vision and scope, rendering narrow rulings that have nothing to do with true justice. This is true at all levels of the judiciary, but especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution. Given the turbulence of our age, with its police overreach, military training drills on American soil, domestic surveillance, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, wrongful convictions, and corporate corruption, the need for a guardian of the people’s rights has never been greater. Yet when presented with an opportunity to weigh in on these issues, what does our current Supreme Court usually do? It ducks. Prevaricates. Remains silent. Speaks to the narrowest possible concern. More often than not, it gives the government and its corporate sponsors the benefit of the doubt. Rarely do the concerns of the populace prevail.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, these are abuses that no American should tolerate from its government, and yet not only do we tolerate them, but we help to advance them by supporting meaningless elections, allowing ourselves to be divided by partisan politics, and failing to hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution.

Mark my words: if we do not push back against the menace of the police state now, if we fail to hold onto the Constitution and our constitutional republic, and if we allow the government to remain the greatest threat to our freedoms, then future Thanksgivings will find us paying the price with tyranny at home and anarchy throughout the world.

Sez D-FensDogG: 
If the American troops don't support the Constitution, don't support the troops! If the American Police don't support Truth, Justice, and the American Way, don't support the police.

Just say "NO!" to blind, jingoistic pseudo-American patriotism!

Now, go have a Happy Thanksgiving. But let us give thanks (to You-Know-Who) for the things we should truly be thankful for.

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

25 comments:

  1. But it's Thanksgiving and I will myself to be thankful. I'm truly thankful, first of all, for your friendship. For my rock, my Hubzam. For the health of my first and second born; for the healing of my youngest. I'm thankful for thoughtful articles and people who actually "think" about things, too. God bless and happy Thanksgiving.

    “Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.” (Sarah Ban Breathnach)

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    1. Thanks, DOC CHERDO! And I certainly appreciate your friendship as well. I've made a number of really good friends through blogging - friends I have never actually met - and wouldn't it be cool if somehow we were all together for a Thanksgiving feast?

      If you and I and FAE and 6 and 6B and Robin, Arlee, and many others were sitting around a Thanksgiving table, wouldn't that be a trip? I can only imagine some of the entertaining discussions that would come out of an experience like that.

      Nice quote from Sarah. Let's not Ban her, regardless of her Breath.

      Have a wonderful T (thanksgiving and turkey) Day.

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Loyal American Underground'

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    2. I like that Thanksgiving dream of yours. Maybe next year--if we can still do things like that.

      Arlee Bird
      Tossing It Out

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    3. One never knows, LEE. The older I get, the weirder my life seems to become. So, a bunch of weirdos meeting for the first time around a Thanksgiving table in 2016 doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility to me.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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    4. That would be so much fun! Great idea!

      Delete
  2. The Anthem was nearly as good a Jimmi Hendrix's electric guitar . . .

    It is a shame that the US, and the world in general, has fallen into anarchy. Yes, the US is a long way from its beginnings.

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    1. OH DONNA! ~
      Nice to see ya here.

      That is my all-time favorite instrumental version of 'The Star-Spangled Banner'. My favorite vocal version I heard many years ago by The Ray Conniff Singers, and it included 3 and 4 part harmonies that were simply incredible. That was the first time I heard our national anthem and thought: Wow! This can actually be a great song.

      Jesse McGuire, however, has completely mastered that melody and makes it his own with some of those perfectly placed flourishes that really get a crowd fired up.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  3. I say ~ Whitehead nailed it! I admit

    Hey, I'm guessing you added the links, within his article, maybe... or did he provide them?

    When I'm not nice to myself, I can let this stuff heat me up. But solutions need a cool tongue, fasting and prayer. That's the way I see it for now.

    >>..."Sez D-FensDogG:" Everything you said at this point is good advice. Thank you. Lord give me the strength and Faith to not only agree in words, but also, to do so in deeds.

    I thank my God for you, my friend.
    dp.

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    1. DIXIE POLKA ~
      No, actually the links were already present in the article. I could certainly have added more though.

      Agreed. Prayer to God and Christ is our best weapon against satan's minions (aka as Uncle Scam and blind followers).

      Hey, I'm hosting a Thanksgiving feast for all my blog friends. Can you be here by 5:00 PM? I'll be providing all the booze, you just need to bring a turkey and some of those other incidentals (mashed potatoes, dressing, pumpkin pie).

      Come to think of it, Stephen T.(Tom) McTurkey will already be here, so just bring the others.

      Have a great Thanksgiving Day, my friend!

      ~ D-FensDogG

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    2. I tried teleporting, but the glass dishes would not cooperate. I know - I should have used aluminum pans! It seemed too tacky and I couldn't bear to disappoint you (smile). The boiled corn was great.

      By the way. In your response to SBB6:

      "We've got two Chapters of this organization: Saguaro Shade / Grits 'N' Cornbread."

      That's funny, and you forgot the fried chicken.

      dp

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    3. dp ~
      Well, being a vegetarian since late 1985, fried chicken don't fit. :o)

      Ever tried to seek shade under a saguaro?

      ~ D-FensDogG

      Delete
  4. Happy Thanksgiving to you and FAE! Wanted to stop by to say hello and let you know about my (brand new, only-one-post-at-the-time-of-this-writing-and-an-about-page-published) new blog. Hope to fall back in line with the battles soon! I confess I didn't have time to read all of your post, but will come back ASAP. But I work retail and am about to have to go to work this evening!

    Have a great holiday!

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    1. Welcome back, KIM. You rock, Belle!

      A Happy Turkey Day to you, too.
      Let me know when you're ready to BOTB with us again and I will add permanent links to your (new) blog again on all of my pages.

      You know, December 1st would be a great time to join the ranks of BOTBers. [;o)}

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  5. Maybe we can sometime try to arrange a get-together (while we still can.)

    Do you know where everyone lives? Maybe you can map them and see who is close enough to make a meet-up. You're in Reno, FAE's in Tahoe, Lee is in L.A., I'm in WA... but I come to within 3 hours of you at least once a year. Perhaps you can arrange something someday. Even if it twern't Thanksgiving we could have some turkey (except you. Care for some "Tofurkey?")

    Sigh. Whitehead hits the nail on the (white)head. And this stuff is only one angle of a multi-faceted gem of compressed feces. There is more poo from MANY other angles.

    I am grateful this Thanksgiving that I read this the DAY AFTER! HA!

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    1. SBB-6 ~
      I just say "No!" to tofu turkey. But I'm all for the get-together.

      And I know Br'er Marc is in your neck of the woods. Nappy and LC are in Phoenix. Unfortunately, a few good members of this group are way down South - such as Dixie, Robin, and Cherdo.

      Maybe a meeting out West one time and a meeting down yonder in the South some other year. We've got two Chapters of this organization: Saguaro Shade / Grits 'N' Cornbread.

      Will get Email part 2 of 2 sent ASAP, but until Friday, I am working 12.5 hour days. Don't 'spect nuttin' before then.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  6. Very true, rather pathetic really. If a politician deals with a rich sob they should be thrown in one of those corporate owned jails. In reality we own nothing much, which can be proven by not paying property taxes, do that and poof, you "own" it no more.

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    1. You are precisely correct, PAT.
      But, heck, we can rarely even get police officers who abuse and murder citizens thrown into corporate jails. (And they do it constantly.) Good luck with us imprisoning politicians.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  7. Great to see any team leave the Yankees in the dust.

    Swell performance by Jesse McGuire. I think that was before performance enhancing drugs overtook the brass instrument world, so kudos to him.

    Of course this does make me wonder how much the defense department has paid the MLB and NFL to advertise/recruit, errr, I mean “support our troops” post 9/11.
    Whatever. Don’t want to spoil my mellow, tryptophanious state of mind.

    Stephen, I hope you are doing well.

    SirSig of Turkey Sandwich

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    1. Well, look what the monkey dragged in!

      SirSigToo, I oughta ban ya from this blog for abandoning me. But, well... it IS Christmastime now, and you ARE here now, and your comment WAS entertaining, and... well... let's bury the fruitcake and let bygones be bygones.

      I will say that the ONLY thing I don't like about that video is the Stealth bomber flying over. But, of course, the military-industrial complex must always have its advertisement, too.

      I hope your holiday season is shaping up nicely. But more than that, I hope you will return to your old ways of STMcC blog participation.

      We have a new BOTB installment in just 3 more days. Feel free to vote here early and vote here often.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  8. Happy Thanksgiving Stephen. It's still the Thanksgiving weekend so I'm considering a Happy Thanksgiving wish to still be appropriate. Hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends.
    Our country is in a world of shit right now and it has been for some time. I don't know what the answers are but I think a good start would be to get everybody who is currently serving in Congress out and get new blood in there. Start fresh! These old guys that have been there forever and their back-door deals with the lobbyists and each other sure make for some shady government. My opinion anyway...
    Enjoy your Sunday! :)

    Michele at Angels Bark

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    1. Thanks, MICHELE! And I hope your Holiday season is off to a great start, also.

      I like your idea of getting everyone in... out!
      But I'm afraid that the new blood would quickly be corrupted and become like the old blood. ("Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.") Because, in fact, the politicians are really just tools for the International Bankers (themselves being tools for satan).

      The best start we could make would be to audit and then abolish The Federal Reserve (a banking monopoly in the hands of private, international bankers).

      Until The Fed is gone, there is no hope for America. The power to coin and determine the value of money must be returned to the People via their duly elected representatives in Congress (just as it states in the Constitution).

      But, heck yeah, let's get rid of everyone anyway. Why not? They've all obviously taken an oath that they never kept.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  9. Outstanding article with so much truth. However I don't think this is merely a trend of the U.S., but this is the global trending towards the one-world government. We are in crazy times for sure, but it should come as no surprise and our expectations for improvement should be low. Oh sure, we might see some positive steps that might give us temporary hope and we'll see a time when peace seems to be at hand, but this will be part of the deception.

    I never thought I'd see a day when I'd have more admiration and confidence in the leader of Russia than the leader of the United States, but things are becoming topsy turvy. The old pendulum keeps on swinging with an ever widening arc.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

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    1. >>... this is the global trending towards the one-world government.

      Absolutely!
      We know how this all will end because...
      "IT IS WRITTEN".

      Get right with God. That's all any of us can really do. THAT, and try to awaken others to what is coming.

      ~ D-FensDogG

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  10. You already know what I think about all of this. All I'll say is this - my father-in-law said something that absolutely horrified me the other day. No, it wasn't "Can I come live with you?" It was this, after coming from the airport: "They really beefed up security for the holidays. They do a good job at making me feel extra safe." And he wasn't being sarcastic.

    Ugh... yeah, the master plan is clearly working. All of the so-called "safety measures" that infringe on our rights? The people are eating it up and accepting it as safety. Being conditioned to not just accept it but LIKE it. Willful compliance. Is there anything more horrifying?

    "I now have to submit to an X-ray scan and full cavity search just to enter Wal-Mart... but boy do I feel safer than ever!" - life in 20 years

    ~6B

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    1. Yeah, it's so sad that the Americonned Sheeple have been so successfully conditioned that they actually appreciate and embrace the chains that bind them.

      If only Uncle Scam would put in place some safety measures that would protect We The People from Uncle Scam.

      I hate to say it but it's absolutely true: We more than deserve our bondage.

      ~ D-FensDogG
      'Loyal American Underground'

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