Recomended Reading

[Crosstimbers Okie]

Johnny Rodriguez made an appearance in central Oklahoma last summer...

One Ranger

[LTABM]

Those were the good stories. I had the pleasure of meeting the ol ranger at a book signing here in Big Spring. He is a stand up guy!

[Crosstimbers Okie]

From the author of: Texas Prisons: The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas

Amazon.com: The Largest Hotel Chain in Texas: Texas Prisons: Lon Glenn: Books


The Backgate Website - A Texas Prison and Criminal justice based news and information source

Evading Reality

By: Lon Glenn, Backgate Editorial



The novelist, Ayn Rand, said something once that every Texan should keep in mind. She said, “We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.”

Truer words were never spoken. People evade reality all the time by rationalizing, fantasizing or just refusing to think. One of the great literary examples was Scarlett O’Hara’s often repeated phrase, “I’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

Where this ceases to be an academic discussion and becomes dangerous is when liberal Democrats and various other well meaning politicos proceed with the misguided assumption that because America is a special country and because of its power and size, it has a moral obligation to lead the world and shape it in its own image.

We are NOT {in point of fact} a special country. We are a lucky country. We owe our size and prosperity to our ancestors. These ancestors were a rough-and-tough bunch, about as politically incorrect as you can be. But it is through no small thanks to them that today we live in the choicest part of the North American continent. They left the frozen north to the Canadians and the deserts for Mexico.

That said, our size and our power give us neither the moral right nor the ability to rule the world. We have more than we can say grace over right here at home. If we do not shed this delusion that we are somehow capable of policing the world, we’ll follow the path of previous empires and collapse under the weight of our own hypocrisy sometime in this century. Let us look at ourselves realistically.

Our military power is primarily nuclear, and nuclear weapons are suicidal. We haven’t won a real war since 1945. We had a stalemate in Korea, a defeat in Vietnam. We drove a third world military out of Kuwait and it remains to be seen if we’re going to cut and run out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

We’ve become a nation that deludes itself on hype. We declare “victory,” and conveniently forget that a truck bomber drove us out of Lebanon. The barefoot soldiers of a Somali warlord drove us out of Somalia.

If we continue to pursue American domination we will create our own opposition. The rest of the world is too diverse to ever accept American style capitalism. Frankly, I don’t think we have either the ability or the sand in our craw to impose it.

Our government can’t enforce its own domestic laws, even as the country is being overrun with illegal aliens. When we are terrified of losing a single pilot, then we’d probably be better off not to tangle with countries that will kill our soldiers by the thousands while demonstrating a ready willingness to give up their own lives to accomplish the mission. We have too many academics, journalist and presidential candidates who have no experience in either war or diplomacy. They try everyday to evade reality. They live inside their heads. They read. They write. But it’s the reality outside their heads that can/will kill us all.



Lon Bennett Glenn

TDCJ-ID Warden II – {Ret.}

[GUNNER]

Just finished "The Hot House"...Outstanding book.

[Tuffelhund]

Here are two good studies of Prison riots:

States of Siege: U.S. Prison Riots, 1971-1986 by Bert Useem and Peter Kimball.

Covers from Attica to the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville, WV. The last one is the annual sight of the Mock Prison Riot each year.


Resolution of Prison Riots: Strategies and Policies, by Bert Useem, Camille Graham Camp, and George Camp.

This one picks up where the first one left off, covers at least one BOP facility riot. New Mexico, and the facility where the first and last of the five riots in Michigan took place. Warning: It get s a little gory in New Mexico.

[Crosstimbers Okie]

Those look interesting.

[Tuffelhund]

Be aware they are sociological studies of prison riots, but interesting reading anyhow. I donated copies to my facility after I read them.