Two Mockeries Of A Sham and 'Liquid Muck'

  Recently I was watching the Woody Allen movie Bananas and was struck by one particular scene in the movie where Allen's character is on trial for treason and he's representing himself in court. At one point he argues for a mistrial, telling the judge:

"This trial is a travesty.

lt's a travesty of a mockery

of a sham of a mockery

                                       of two mockeries of a sham."

  It's a very apt & succinct description of my own experience in a Taiwan court, the prosecutor's office and the nursing university's bogus "investigation" committee! I'm sure Zain Dean, former president Chen Shu-bian, and many, many other victims of Taiwan's dreadful, pathetic, third-world judiciary could say the same thing about their own cases.
  About the only positive thing I could say about my case was that the court even bothered to take it up. At one point just before the first hearing kicked off, my attorney shocked me by saying that there was a strong chance the judge would dismiss my case at the hearing. She couldn't give me a clear explanation as to why she thought that. Somehow, the case wasn't dismissed and instead I got sucked into a protracted four-year judicial quagmire that would be my living nightmare of nightmares.
  Speaking of quagmires, in an April 18 article in The Taipei Times entitled "Political system a 'sort of liquid muck', former American Institute in Taiwan Richard Bush describes Taiwan's political system as a sort of "liquid muck". In searching for an image to illustrate the nature of the island's political system, he says "The one that comes to mind is quicksand."
  “Many of us will remember, from watching Western movies and serials, the episodes where the hero is dragged down by this liquid muck,” he goes on to say in pointing out how unless something drastic happens, "the hero is pulled under and asphyxiated."
  The same analogy also describes very well the state of Taiwan's shameful and dysfunctional judicial system. Where there have been 'heroes' who've dared to defend their innocence to prosecutors and the court, many have been sucked under and drowned in the quicksand that is the island's judiciary. 
  Guilty or not of the numerous corruption charges against him, former president Chen was one of the unlucky ones unable to escape the judicial 'liquid muck." To this day he continues to suffer at the vindictive and abusive hands of his oppressors in the government and judiciary.
  Zain Dean only escaped his ignominious fate, in particular a torturous 4-year prison term, by boldly fleeing Taiwan before he could begin serving his highly questionable sentence.
  In my case, I slugged it out with the nursing university, the prosecutor's office, and the court for four seemingly interminable years before finally being pulled all the way under and suffocated by the quicksand of Taiwan's inept, biased and corrupt judicial system.