Educate Ohio and The Original Argument: My Speech and a Special Gift

A friend of mine gave me a new book. Every time I get a new book, I have a good day. This particular book was The Original Argument, by Glenn Beck and Joshua Charles, at an event I was speaking at called Educate Ohio.

The event had about 30 to 40 school board members, teachers and education reform advocates where I gave a presentation on how excessive wages under union contracts are bankrupting school districts.

After the meeting I learned how the book came into my friend’s possession. The book had just be released and a woman had bought 50 of them and was passing them out at the Lebanon Racetrack, a popular meeting place for the Lebanon Tea Party, and she gave my friend 5 of them and told her to pass them out to people who would do something with the book. My friend then gave me one of those 5, which is a treasure to me greater than gold.

I read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers last summer. They were respectfully hard reads because of the old dialogue, but it was those books that inspired me to start this site, Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. I wanted this blog site to be a kind of modern Federalist Papers using all the tools of the modern age to paint the picture of America’s situation. I had heard that Beck and Joshua were attempting to update the Federalist Papers into modern language that everyone could understand, and that’s what The Original Argument is. It is wonderful that finally every day people will be able to read this book and actually understand how the American government is supposed to be.

One of the speakers before me at the Educate Ohio Conference was Paul Lambert from Columbus, who said something in his presentation that made me connect the two things together, Glenn Beck’s new book, and this education event. He said, “Schools are one of the last things in our republic that we still actually control locally.” He was right; our school districts are one of the last bastions of America that are left. We elect our school boards locally, and we pay for them locally, at least for the most part. And we see that our schools have gotten away from us, they are being run by large unions that have their eyes on state and federal money that they can turn around and use indirectly to manipulate the political process, and it’s happening right under our noses.

When I gave my speech, there were many people there that were from Pickerington, Ohio where the new superintendent for my school district of Lakota comes from. This has been another issue that has exploded on the scene over the last couple of days and I am deeply disappointed in our school board’s decision to hire this person. Here is a preview of my comments that will appear in the Pulse Journal this coming Thursday. Click on the article to go to the I-Team Investigation video on double-dipping superintendents and learn the real story behind the scam. Click here to hear the radio broadcast done by that same reporter on 700 WLW. This is important!
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I thought Ron Spurlock was doing a great job as superintendent of Lakota. He was innovative, energetic, had the ability to unite people, and he was cheaper. So it is baffling to me why the school board elected to hire a double-dipping superintendent from just up the road for $165,000, about $50,000 more than they were paying Ron, and they spent 50K to find her. Didn’t anybody learn anything from the Channel 9 I-Team report we did in May?

I’m sure Mantia is a nice lady. I’m willing to give her a chance, so long as she doesn’t ask for more tax money. My problem is in the absolute preposterous understanding of economics. The school board spent $100,000 dollars that it didn’t need to. Why?

Did the school board think that getting a superintendent from outside of the district like Mantia is what the No Lakota Levy people wanted? She’s more of the same. You’re personnel costs are too high, and decisions like what was made in hiring Mantia perfectly exhibits the folly. You had a guy right in front of you and you hired a woman playing the system. And we are supposed to believe we should increase our taxes even higher than they are now to pay for this lack of understanding?

Lakota doesn’t need more revenue to fund their inflated ideas about what education is. It needs to dump its high dollar, ineffective teachers and administrators, keep people like Mr. Duff, but dump the ones you plainly know do not deserve 75K per year, and replace them with ambitious, cheaper labor fresh out of college. Don’t tell me you don’t know the difference between a good teacher and a bad one. Here’s a hint, the bad ones are working just for money, and just like superintendents that retire the minute they turn 55 then seek to be rehired so they can double-dip. Let those bad teachers go to another district. It will create a job vacancy for us.

If Lakota wants to stay excellent, it can’t just tread water. It’s has to become sustainable over time.

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The arrogance of the school board to play politics in plain site is an obvious sign of disrespect. The people I talk to are aware of it, but aren’t sure what to do about it, because things have always been this way in their lives. People are only now waking up to it because the money is running out, and it’s not so easy to just toss money at corrupt people anymore to just shut them up. People are finally starting to look at how things are supposed to be.

As I packed up all my notes, and presentation material from my speech, I looked at the book that was left for me in the back of the room under my camera tripod, The Original Argument, by Glenn Beck, given to me by someone that had it given to them, who simply wanted to wake people up so they can understand how to defend themselves. A woman that bought 50 copies of the book with her own money and gave them away in all hope that someone would learn, and just possibly one person out of that 50 would do something to stop the madness.

As my wife and I left the building into the hot June sun, I thought about Paul’s words about how schools are the last things we still can control, and the woman who hoped that the foundations of the country would be re-learned. I watched the people leaving the Educate Ohio Conference and I saw that the battle lines were right in front of me. This is the stand that must be taken, and it must be defeated before any government reform can precede, this debate over school funding, and education content.

I ran my fingers over the cover of that book and took a moment to be grateful that such a literary achievement could even be published, and purchased, and brought to my hands with the best of intentions, because it’s not too late for an army of thought to gather in order to combat the massive tyranny that has hid itself in complicated legislation and ancient language. Holding that book gave me the feeling of rebirth in America, and that good would triumph over pure evil.

After my speech I thought of several people who had approached me, and as I unlocked my car to get in and drive away I reflected about what I said to them. “What are we to do, how can we stop this massive corruption?”

I told them, “They’ve already lost. They hide like cockroaches because they have to. They can’t talk about the facts because they rely on your emotions to control you. If you do like you’re doing, come to conferences like this, read, and pay attention, you will beat them sooner than you can imagine. Just keep focused, stay with the truth, and give them no place to hide. And you’ll get your country back.”
We’ve already won. The trouble is, the bad guys don’t know it yet because they’re too stupid and arrogant to see that they’ve been caught. All people need is the truth, and it will literally set them free in every way possible.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Jimmy McMillan is the Real Deal: in a house of warped mirrors and flashy lighting

Jimmy McMillan is awesome! The radio interview he did on June 17, 2011 with Doc Thompson is classic. In this interview he declared his candidacy for President of the United States. He also tells the story about how in the past when his kids were hungry and he needed money how he went to the strip club and became a stripper working the poles so his children could eat. As outrageous as much of the stuff he says on this interview is, he articulates what most every single person in America feels.

I may not agree with everything Jimmy says. I don’t think it’s the government’s job to do much of anything for people. I don’t want a “daddy” watching over me. But Jimmy is a real person, a passionate person, who truly cares. If he was just after publicity he would have given up long ago.

Read all about Jimmy here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_McMillan

Early campaigns
McMillan’s first run for political office came in 1993, when he ran for Mayor of New York on the Rent Is Too Damn High ticket. In the course of that campaign, McMillan was at one point tied to a tree and doused with gasoline;[5] he would later climb the Brooklyn Bridge and refuse to come down from it unless television stations broadcast his message.[6] He was ultimately disqualified from the ballot for coming 300 petition signatures short of the 7,500 needed to qualify for the general election ballot.

McMillan next ran for governor of New York in 1994 by traveling from his home in Brooklyn through upstate New York to Buffalo on foot, staying in homeless shelters along the way; his original itinerary had him walking back to Brooklyn as well, but an injury in Rochester led to him taking a bus home.[7] When he arrived in Buffalo, the site of the state Democratic convention, McMillan disrupted a speech by incumbent governor Mario Cuomo at the convention and was thrown out because of it.[8] After failing to collect enough signatures to get onto the ballot, he continued in a write-in campaign.

The Federal Elections Commission has a record of McMillan entering himself in the United States presidential election, 1996 as a Republican; McMillan did not get onto any primary ballots.
McMillan was removed from the ballot during the 2000 U.S. Senate election in New York.[9]

McMillan’s political positions contain heavy influence from populist principles. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle described his 1994 platform as such: “While McMillan said he hopes to be a spokesman for the poor in his bid for Governor, his solutions make him sound more like a Republican.”[7]

• McMillan has come out against federal bailouts, specifically the Wall Street Bailout of 2008 and the Obama Administration’s bailout of General Motors. Referencing the bailout and his presidential run, he said of Obama: “If you don’t do your job right, I am coming at you.”[30]

• McMillan believes that global warming is a natural occurrence that occurs every 15,000 years. He disputes the idea that is caused by man and pollution, saying he “isn’t buying [the] punk science” of Al Gore.

• A supporter of same-sex marriage, McMillan joked in the 2010 gubernatorial debate he would allow marriage between a person and a shoe.[31][32][33]

• McMillan, as founder of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, is against high rent and property taxes for homeowners. He believes that lowering rent and cutting taxes will ease financial stress and help eradicate hunger and poverty, as well as raise tax revenue. He surmises that reducing rent would “create 3 to 6 million jobs” by freeing up capital to give businesses a chance to hire people. He also favors tax credits for commuters.[34][35]

• McMillan and the party are in favor of writing off all taxes owed to the state, consolidating the rent boards in New York, seizure of unoccupied apartment buildings, reforming the state court system, and free college tuition.[34][35]

• McMillan is in favor of having fixed rate of low rent across America, which would be the same regardless of property value. He states that adjusting the rent for property value “is a bunch of crap” and “a scheme to run out the poor.”[citation needed]

• McMillan supports allowing laws to be influenced by Christianity. His website states that “we need more reliance on the moral laws brought by religion and not limit out goodwill to our neighbors and co-workers to what the law demands alone.” He also spoke of “restoring family values” and making sure that one parent remains at home to watch children.[36]

• McMillan and the party oppose any spending cuts to education or elderly care services.[34][35]

• McMillan has called for investigations of, and has sought to increase awareness of, fraud and Ponzi schemes in the real estate markets.[37]

• Of his potential Republican opponents for the Presidential nomination, he thinks of Newt Gingrich as a “good liar” in the vein of John Edwards and that “people look at him and laugh,” Mitt Romney as a “good-looking guy [that] will keep the ladies from looking at me.” He has also stated that he loves Sarah Palin[38] and holds an extremely negative view of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.[39]

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The problem with Jimmy McMillan is that he is all over the map regarding policy. Traditional conservative platform points are already established and the progressive press has laid out the ground rules. Any Republican that runs for any office knows that they must fit in with some sort of “talking point” within the established rules, the same thing for the Democratic candidate. I could argue with Jimmy for hours that education should be cut, issues around same-sex-marriage and other political sticking points should be other than what he believes, but that’s not the point. The problem is we have a two party system that is built to appease the American public in a controllable way. The reason I like Jimmy McMillan is that he is outside of that control. He is a product of his life’s journey, as a Vet, as a stripper, and long time political activists that boldly threw caution to the wind. He has not had a charmed life of privilege. Nobody has given him a break, a chance, or even a helping hand. Yet he is determined to get out his message, the way a wise man that lives through a lifetime should.

The same media that propped up Anthony Wiener and John Edwards will look at Jimmy McMillan as a joke when in reality it’s the other way around. I’d rather know about the real guy that runs for office than some contrived piece of crap like Anthony Wiener.

Talk about a joke, this is a guy that was the press darling just a few weeks ago. Is he any more credible than Jimmy McMillan? The hecklers are just saying what we all feel. Nobody likes to be lied to and Anthony Wiener did lie to us all, just as President Bill Clinton did.

John Edwards is a complete scum bag. I despise that any money I’ve ever given to the federal government might have found its way to him even in an indirect way. What a waste of tax payer money.

Remember when Ron Blagojevich tried to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat. He got caught on tape selling the seat away to the highest bidder. Ouch.

And of course just like all the radicals Obama has surrounded himself with, when they get caught, he washes his hands of the subject, hangs them out to dry, and changes the subject.

In the screwed up, backward world we live in, the thieves become celebrities and heroes while the good among us are ridiculed, punished and shoved into a corner. Here is Ron Blagojevich’s wife Patty on a reality TV show, an opportunity she would have never had if the media had not propped her up in pursuit of finding a way to redeem the actions of her husband.

So before anyone says that Jimmy McMillan is not the real deal, that he is somehow not a credible candidate for any office, I would suggest that you need to rethink what it is that you are looking for in an elected servant. Do you want the same old liar, cheat, thief, manipulator, and selfish sell-out, or do you want common sense to govern?

I want common sense. I want the least polished candidate that is functioning from true intentions. And more than any of that, I want a guy that has made peace with themselves, and is happy with who they are, because such people are less likely to attempt to use public money to fill the voids in their lives.

That’s why I love Jimmy McMillan. He’s the real deal. He’s broke, but he doesn’t care. He finds a way. I love this interview. He wears an Underarmor shirt with a business jacket………..authentic.

Half of what he says in this next clip, I don’t agree with at all. But he’s right about one big thing, government is corrupt.

I think that once Jimmy had an elected office he is smart enough to figure out what’s right and wrong. I’d trust him well before I’d trust another candidate.

We all get the kind of government we deserve, and if we lack the courage to take a chance with someone outside the mainstream, that is looking at the world through the lens of common-sense and not party politics, then we will suffer under the maneuvers of the corrupt looters of our political system. We’ll continue to wistfully laugh and smile at people like Jimmy McMillan and their honesty like we shrug off the comment of a child while the adults go to the voting booth in the real world and vote for one guy they know will lie to them over another guy they know will lie to them. The choice is yours. You have options, but will you use them?

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota’s New Superintendent is a DOUBLE DIPPER: It’s all about plunder…I mean kids

All it took was one guy from our No Lakota Levy group to show just the slightest inclination to break away from the main group before the district fluffed their wings and assumed that an opening was available to sneak on a school levy in November. This news came on the heels of Lakota’s new superintendent announcement of Karen Mantia. As I listen to Mantia and her priorities I can’t help but wonder why her primary focus is on our children’s retirement.

She has a reputation supposedly of thinking outside the box, but most of what she’s said so far sounds rather typical. How does she know that retirement will even be an option for the children of tomorrow? With all the life extension methods that are up and coming in science, retirement could be pushed to over 100 years old by then. People may live to well over 100 maybe even 150 years old. Retirement is a baby boomer idea that is quickly proving unrealistic. People just aren’t dying at 70 any more like they used to. So that seems like a strange priority. I would think that if she’s so well-educated, she’d be aware of these scientific advances. But she’s new, maybe she was just nervous and said the first thing that came to her mind.

It looks however that she is a double-dipper. Click here to watch a special report done by Channel 9 on this very issue. She retired from Sycamore in July 31, 2006 – likely after having 30 years of service. If she was 55 when she retried, her retirement is 66% of her salary. If she was making $100K when she retired, she will be bringing in $231K and that’s not counting the other benefits that are undoubtedly in her contract. If that’s the case, that’s a major issue with me, as a tax payer I’m paying for her retirement package, indirectly, but the money still came from somewhere, and now she is being paid by Lakota $165,000 per year, which is more than the last superintendent that I thought was paid too much. Lakota also spent 50K to find her, and she was just up the road. It doesn’t make sense to me.

But I’m happy to give her a chance. She’ll be alright with me until she asks for more money.

As to the article in the Pulse Journal where the Pro Levy people exploded in exhilaration that Mark Sennet showed signs of defecting. Read that article here:

‘No Lakota’ group split on next levy

Some would OK ‘conservative’ levy in November; others don’t want any levy.

Staff Writer 11:32 AM Thursday, June 16, 2011

LIBERTY TWP. — Members of the No Lakota group are in disagreement about whether they would support a levy if Lakota puts one on the ballot.

West Chester Twp. resident Mark Sennet spoke to the board of education Monday, saying the No Lakota group would support a “conservative” levy in 2012 if the board would bypass the election this November.
However, No Lakota member Rich Hoffman, who has typically spoken on behalf of the group, said no discussion had occurred at a meeting about supporting a levy, and he was holding fast to his stance on never supporting a levy.

Hoffman said there may be a split in the group, but he thinks the 50-and-older crowd will stand with him.
Sennet said Lakota officials have made “a valiant effort to try to work and control spending,” but people still need time to recover from the economic crisis. He said he and several developers would be on the board’s side if it waited for November 2012.

“We acknowledge that there were changes made,” he said. “The businesses had to make changes. The citizens had to make changes, and we were glad to see the union and teachers and board agreed to a pay freeze. But if the levy were to pass, then I guess that would be good for the community.”

Board member Ray Murray said he was pleased the business community is recognizing the district’s transparency and how it is listening to the community.

“There are going to be people who are not going to ever say yes to anything, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “We’ve got to generate more revenue. We can’t survive on a 2005 budget.”
Former For Lakota levy chairwoman Sandy Wheatley said the board and district representatives have been mending fences with those in opposition since the last election.

“Everyone has kind of stepped up to the plate to do their part,” she said. “Now, with all those pieces in place — because this is the only way Ohio has left us in terms of ways to fund schools — I think the community will see this as now it is time for us to put the last piece together by doing our part to support the tax issue. … Perhaps the residents now will be better critical thinkers around if what they are hearing is accurate information.”

Board president Joan Powell said the board will meet for a work session at the end of the month to study an updated five-year forecast and discuss options.

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Mark and some of the other developers in our group have always been about trying to reduce the rates of tax on the properties they are holding that aren’t making any money in a tough economy. Mark just wants to get through a tough year and he’ll probably support a levy. I’ve always known that defection of a few of these guys was inevitable. They were welcome to ride along as long was we all fought for a common cause. We have many supporters of many different degrees of belief.

I do take offense however at Ray Murry’s comments where he says some people, (like me) will never support a levy.

Why would I support a levy when I can see in the light of day that labor costs are the number one problem at Lakota, and the teacher’s unions are the primary culprits that drove up those costs? Why would I think that a silly contract agreement that freezes actual step increases is enough? That’s only a three-year band-aid. Heck, three years ago I remember the teachers union in 2008 threatening a strike demanding higher wages. That wasn’t that long ago and I remember it vividly. When the union did that, I decided that public sector unions had no place in any tax payer organization. So there is no reason to even discuss a levy when so much money at the top is used on union activity. Unions drive up the labor costs not just for a couple of exceptional employees, but for everyone! There are no controls over how much a teacher can make. They are free to get a degree which immediately drives up their salary regardless of whether or not their degree actually contributes to a child’s education, because I don’t think it does. Unions just cost too much, so while they are in place, and I don’t want my money being scrapped off the top by them, why would I support them? If the union was out-of-the-way and the community could see the actual cost of what education costs, then I’d be more inclined to support a levy. I already pay a lot in taxes each year, so it’s not like people who don’t want more taxes on their property don’t support their schools and the kids that go to them. People like me don’t support public unions.

If that is a radical position, too bad, but it’s the facts. People like Mr. Murry are trying to justify why the school board has not been acting as a management protection, because they can’t. They are just figureheads. Lakota will attempt another levy because they have a new superintendent, they think our No Lakota Group is split, and they don’t know how to do anything else. Like Ray says, “We’ve got to generate more revenue. We can’t survive on a 2005 budget.” I’d say, “Why not?”

$10K per child is too high for poor performance, and the United States is not in first place in the world education market, and Mrs. Mantia’s Global Program won’t do anything to help. It’s just another way of dressing up what kids are already supposed to be learning in school.

But the state is cutting funding. The federal government is cutting money too! Hey, folks, get used to it. The gravy train the unions used with all the free money that was lost in bureaucratic nonsense is gone, and the expectation is that local communities are going to cover the difference. No, we won’t be. That’s simply not going to happen.

What’s going to happen is that schools are going to have to cut back their real costs, their wages, or they will become extinct. Property owners are not going to cover the cost of the outrageous expectations the unions have negotiated for themselves. Unions took advantage of government, as they always do, of the fact that nobody had any real skin in the game. When state and federal money is coming, it was easy to divide up the spoils, and they did. As a group, the teachers unions got greedy. Now that is coming to an end as states try to balance their budgets. And property owners do have skin in the game……their property!

So if Lakota chooses to put a levy on the ballot this November, or even in 2012, without cutting the wasted cost in excessive wages schools are enduring, then the No Lakota Group will be there to fight them.

During the last levy attempt of 2010 we held back. I personally had a lot more to throw out, but for the sake of the community, I held back a lot. If Lakota elects to go after the tax payers again with another levy before the teachers union reduces the wages for their top wage earners by 30%, or while superintendents like Karen Manita draws retirement from Sycamore where she retired at exactly 55 years old, then turned around and took another job so she could double-dip, then quit that district to come to Lakota, get a 20K raise then stand in front of everyone and tell the residents of the district is “for the kids.”

Hiding behind kids, exploiting the hard work of property owners to create lucrative jobs for themselves does not necessitate a levy request until the run-away costs are controlled, and if that means getting rid of the union, fine. If that means the union takes a pay cut, but stays put as an organization, fine. If S.B.5 gives school boards the ability to dramatically cut their labor costs, then fine. But it is not acceptable to ask for more money from the tax payer to cover the cost of lost state and federal revenue. We are not picking up the bill when the unions took too much, and they did in 2008. It’s time for them to give back, or move along so we can hire cheaper teachers, that will still keep Lakota one of the best schools in the state. Because failure, of any kind, is not an option.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Do You Believe in Spies: Review of the film SALT and how sleeper cells have corrupted America

A society’s mythology is absolutely essential to the sustainability of any culture. And in American culture, it is our movies that communicate the concerns of our population. Love stories tell the stories of the heart, comedies tickle the social taboos not realized in everyday life, and adventure films take us to places most of our mundane lives cannot transport us to without wrecking ourselves. Within that genre of action-adventure films comes spy stories, which are attempts by the creative community to ease the tensions we all feel when dealing with a globe of competing enemies seeking to undermine each other in the eternal quest for victory. For the free world, James Bond, the master spy set the standard for millions of men who looked to the ultimate man, who never panicked while trying to defend the free world from world domineering elites seeking to enslave the world. For me the start of Moonraker is one of the best openings of a James Bond film.

Since the golden age of Bond, at the height of the cold war in the late 70’s and early 80’s, James Bond has become softer, more progressively complex and has lost much of what made him the gem of Ian Fleming’s books. Daniel Craig’s version of Bond in the last two films presents a guy that is ultimately more realistic, but destroys much of the mythology of what the character of James Bond represents.

I have not enjoyed many spy films for about a decade, including the Borne Identity films until my wife coaxed me into watching Salt with Angelina Jolie. If there is one actor in Hollywood that my wife likes the most, it’s Angelina Jolie. So for her sake I agreed to watch it. By the end of the movie, I was glad I did.

Not only were the car crashes and action scenes fantastic, but the story was extremely compelling. It’s a topic that I had been thinking about a lot lately, since I have learned that labor unions were founded by communists, and many layers of our current government seem to be working against constitutional principles. In fact, it seems George Soros reminded me of almost every James Bond villain as I was growing up, but in real society saying such a thing is ridiculous, because in our culture, our myths tell our stories, but in politics, we put a layer of cake icing over the reality and avoid talking about the obvious. In such places the villains of our age hide in plain sight. When we see movies, we dare to ask the questions, but when the movie is over, we return back to our political reality and stop daring to ask the hard questions. However, in the film Salt, the uncomfortable question is addressed; are there sleeper cells in the United States, and are they at our highest levels of government? I think they are based on the videos I’ll show you below. In fact, there’s overwhelming evidence that American culture has been penetrated by many enemies from many countries since World War II when America proved to the world that beating America in a war with technology is too costly, and unpredictable. America is too good at thinking outside the box so a war with America needs to happen from within, using sleeper cells of spies to not just attempt to gain intelligence, but to undermine the foundations of emotional strength America stands upon.

Sleeper cells like the group recently busted in the United States have been operating for decades in plain sight. They hide behind issues of racism, gay rights advocates, feminism, and many other liberal positions. One good way to spot the beginning of a sleeper cell is to look for groups that advocate the “Peace” sign.

Sleeper cells from the Soviet Union hid their true intentions behind the hippie movement where KGB agents became leaders of the hippie movement and advocated communism, but hid their sinister intentions behind the sign of peace. This isn’t a new strategy. Pirates of the Caribbean (not the movie, the real pirates) used to fly the flags of whatever nations ship they were attempting to attack, and once they were close enough to fire their cannons, they’d run up the “Jolly Roger.” The Trojan Horse strategy is not a unique strategy when one attacker that is inferior in power attempts to overthrow a power of superior strength.

Just like the woman at the beginning of this article, where James Bond is making out with the woman on a plane and the woman turns out to be a spy, the mythology of that scene is one we all recognize. Women make particularly dangerous spies because even intelligent men who are masters of every part of their lives tend to be vulnerable to sex. Meet Anna Chapman, real life Russian spy every bit as active as Marta Hari was.

She is considered so dangerous that she is imprisoned under solitary confinement.

Here is Anna Chapman before she was caught; it’s interesting to hear about her impression of America. There are no opportunities for a woman like her in Russia. She admits as much. In America all she has to do is use sex and she can get next to the most powerful men in American culture.

These are modern spies, but this game has been going on for a long time. Here is a former KGB agent who gives an interview in 1983 about ideological subversion and how it was installed in public schools. This is an actual KGB agent from the 60’s and 70’s who defected from the Soviet Union in favor of the freedom offered in America and the conclusion that the Soviet Union would fall under its own power. Meet Yuri Bezmenov:

Here Yuri Bezmenov teaches a class how the process of subversion is implemented to undermine America. What’s important to understand is that our local government, our school boards, councilmember’s, trustees, etc are not KGB spies. But what they often are the plants that spring from the seeds that were planted in the college courses they studied, thus the strategy is revealed. Yuri will explain the process.

Yet when such an accusation is brought up by someone like me, those in positions of authority will scorn such a statement because they will say, “that’s crazy, I was not trained by a Soviet spy! I was taught by my professors in college.” What Yuri explains is that the way to reach a majority of America’s population was to get them in school, where their parents were not around to protect the children.

Subversion of a culture is far less expensive to fight than open warfare. It’s less costly than nuclear war for sure. So, under the sign of peace, of avoiding nuclear disaster, agents penetrated American culture to eliminate the threat in a long-term strategy designed to eliminate the will to fight in the future. The Soviet Union was planning on keeping military pace with America until the generations they had infiltrated in public school had grown up and lost the will to fight. That was their goal. What they didn’t count on was that Reagan would force them to go bankrupt well before their plan could be fully realized. Yet the “Peace” sign is the direct result of Soviet sleeper agents operating in the United States and using college campuses as their pawns in the great chess game.

The Peace Sign is one of the most widely known symbols in the world, in Britain it is recognized as standing for nuclear disarmament —and in particular as the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). In the United States and much of the rest of the world it is known more broadly as the peace symbol. It was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts. He showed his preliminary sketches to a small group of people in the Peace News office in North London and to the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, one of several smaller organizations that came together to set up CND.

Source article
http://www.docspopuli.org/articles/PeaceSymbolArticle.html

In the film Salt it is a great movie that explores the role of sleeper agents in America and does it in an entertaining way. The character of Salt is very contemporary because she is not necessarily loyal to the United States or the Soviet Union. In the end she stands for what is right, which is very, very difficult to see in a world of espionage, corruption, power grabs, and normal politics. I found the story very intriguing. I thought it was one of Jolie’s boldest performances. The film left me thinking for days after I saw it.

This next video shows that Russian spies wanted to work for the CIA. It’s the plot of SALT, but for real. The goal of spies is most often not just to uncover secrets but to undermine a culture from within.

Now, in this article I’ve focused on Russian spies because that was the plot of the film Salt. But consider that America has many enemies, all every bit as dangerous as Russia. China has spies; Iran has spies, in fact just think of how many radical Muslim elements are already functioning from within our country. That’s how 911 happened. Every major country is doing the same thing to each other, and the United Nations is absolutely unable to do anything about it, and they never will. This is because treachery is part of the human race. War will always be a part of our existence. There will always be a threat to the security of a peaceful people. Greed cannot be socially engineered out of mankind.

Gaining an advantage over an opponent is part of the human makeup. Look at what Bill Bilichick did for his team the New England Patriots when he was caught cheating to win football games, the NFL couldn’t protect other teams from a head coach looking for a competitive edge. The United Nations will never be able to stop this activity. The only protection anybody has is mutual respect, and a document like the Constitution that limits the power and reach of a government, because man is prone to corruption and subversion. And the more complicated something is, the more opportunities for spies to attempt to subvert one culture so their culture can thrive.

As for James Bond, I miss the old Bond. The new Bond is too weak, and emotional. The old Bond portrayed by Sean Connery and Roger Moore, and even at times by Pierce Bronson were welcome fantasies in a world gone mad were we could go see a movie and believe that such characters could fight the forces we feel are working against us, and be successful. Movies like the old Bond films are worth more than box office results, because they at least make people ask questions about the world around them, and even if the fictional circumstances seem far-fetched in reality, at least the skepticism is healthily exercised in the mind of the viewer. Because in reality, there is more truth than fiction and society needs to understand the possibilities expressed in popular mythology.

So if you haven’t seen Angelina Jolie’s film Salt, treat yourself to the film and enjoy yourself and the ideas it springs up. Because that is what mythology is tasked to do, is make us think. Think of even the improbable, and painful, and help it go down with a good healthy dose of action.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota Finds a New Superintendent: Karen Mantia known for her Global Integration Models

Lakota has announced its new superintendent will be Karen Mantia. The news was first broke by Doc Thompson on 700 WLW during the 9 AM hour while he was interviewing me over another story. The original topic was that one of the No Lakota members appeared to be defecting from our movement and the press was all over the story before I even heard about it. Click here to listen to that broadcast.

I haven’t had the chance to meet Mrs. Mantia, or Doctor as I’m sure she would prefer to be called, so I don’t know what she will do to fix Lakota’s problems. But, it appears she is jumping out of the frying pan and into a bon-fire at Lakota.

Check out this article from Yahoo News about Pickerington Schools up in Columbus.

Source article from Yahoo News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110614/us_ac/8639195_pickerington_school_district_begging_for_levy_support

________________________________________________________________________

 

Administrators at the Pickerington Local School District in Ohio are gearing up for an August levy vote to avert the need to make $7 million in budget cuts. Superintendent Karen Mantia estimates 30 more educator jobs will be cut during the 2012-13 school year if the levy does not pass. While some school administrators and staff are blaming the planned state funding cuts for the district’s financial woes, there is a lot more to consider than the lack of availability of taxpayer funds.

According to the fiscal information on the school website the projected $5 million state funding cuts for this school year would only scale the district back to 2008 funding amounts. The districts experienced at least $5 million per year in increased taxpayer funds since 2000. The school garnered $15 million in state assistance in 2000 and $45 in 2010.

Unsustainable spending is an issue for not just the Pickerington Local School District, but public schools and agencies throughout Ohio. A business as usual approach to funding schools and entitlement programs is simply not feasible without drastically increasing taxes. The fiscally responsible measures detailed in Ohio’s Jobs Budget and Senate Bill 5 are not meant to punish schools or attack public employees, but to ensure districts and agencies can remain solvent without adding to the burden of taxpayers.

Voters residing in the Pickerington Local School District said “no” to a levy increase last year. Residents currently pay $1,303 in property taxes on homes valued at $100,000 and a 1 percent income tax to support the school district.

Even if the 2011 levy gains approval the $500 per student extracurricular fee per sport will still stand. The proposed levy would generate nearly $6 million and add $168 to the average property tax bill. Salaries and benefits comprise the largest portion of the budget. Administrator salaries range from $75,000 to $144,000 per year.

Beginning in 2007 the district initiated a plan to reduce operational expenses by $7 million. During the same time period the district opened three new school buildings. The taxpayer-funded federal stimulus plan added funds to the district’s coffers last fiscal year when the Strickland administration funding formula reduced state assistance by $2 million for the district. Cost saving measures enacted by the district include nearly $3 million for non-replacement of resigning or retiring employees, more than $1 million in transportation cuts and in excess of $300,000 by eliminating positions.

Unlike the Columbus City School District, Pickerington Local does not have audit findings, ongoing fraud investigations or low test scores. Parents within the school community are concerned about access to extracurricular activities with the $500 price tag per club or athletic team. Although school officials are skirting the subject, there is fear that district enrollment will drop as parents exercise the open enrollment option to transport their children to nearby schools so they can continue to enjoy sports and academic clubs.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Pickerington is voting for their levy in August and Karen is leaving while she can still save face because it’s not going to pass. I know some people up there and that is the consensus.

I am concerned that Mantia is highly regarded in transitioning the Pickerington district’s curriculum to a Global Integration Model, which is a big alarm flag to me. I am opposed to school districts doing anything more than teaching the basics, one because in such things as Global Integration Model programs, it’s all about politics. Second, such programs cost money, and that money comes from the tax payer.

The Global Integration Team is part of the Pickerington Local Schools’ vision for 21st century learning. Each team will work collaboratively with building staff to develop dynamic, real-world learning experiences to further the academic achievement of each student.

There are five teams, composed of teachers with expertise in art, music, technology, physical education/wellness and media. Each team will work with classroom teachers to strengthen student understanding of essential knowledge and skill development in the areas of reading, math, science and social studies. Activities will be structured to enhance the 21st century skills of collaboration, communication, critical and innovative thinking.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Well, I thought that was what schools were doing all along.

Read more about Global Integration Models here:

http://www.pickerington.k12.oh.us/school_NewsArticle.aspx?artID=1781&schoolID=16

It’s really a progressive program designed to teach our kids to move into a globalized government, which I’m against as a tax payer. Here’s what it’s really about:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20729275/Poverty-Reduction-Policies-and-Global-Integration

So that’s what we’re getting, as a superintendent, more of the same, a global oriented supporter of socialism. It is amazing to me that Lakota spent $50,000 tax dollars to find this woman who was in a district literally right down the road, which is a supporter of all the things that cost too much in public school, and is philosophically taking our nation in the wrong direction. If the school isn’t teaching American pride first, it is helping to deconstruct it as a way of wealth redistribution. That’s what globalization means.

Globalization is using human’s natural empathy for one another to allow political aims to plant themselves into the freedoms of the individual. This trick of empathy is used to lure tax money toward aims that individuals would otherwise resist. In the way that globalists vision, they use empathy, as it’s taught in public schools to advance a political aim that is focused on wealth redistribution.

It appears as of now that Lakota wasted massive amounts of money to hire a woman fleeing her own district to bring more ideas to Lakota that will take the school in a cosmetically beneficial direction for the school, but a treacherous path for our children and their families.

Here we go again.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Rich Hart Explains the Strange World of Economics: The Devil is in the details

One of the most perplexing aspects of human culture is economics. Most people do not enjoy economics. Economics is a large, confusing tangle of numbers and obscure facts. This is the reason that thieves, looters and other predatory parasites linger in the midst of economics, because there is money to be made in the obscurity. When the average American would prefer to stand in their garage with their friends or family and watch football or NASCAR on a TV sipping on a beer, they are all too happy to just throw money at the government and hope everything works out. But it doesn’t because waiting in the confusion, in the rules and regulation, are the hands of many devils hoping to pull a fast one over on people everywhere to gain wealth themselves.

Paul Ryan’s economic plan is trying to solve this problem, and save the country from financial ruin. Many like Ryan on the inside understand that the looters who are putting America in the financial situation it is currently in, have little loyalty to the United States. The looters would be just as happy to live under United Nations control on an island in the Bahamas or in Nigeria, so long as they are wealthy. Those are the people who are against Paul Ryan’s economic plan.

I had the pleasure of meeting recently Paul Ryan’s economics professor, Rich Hart of Miami University. I was very impressed with Mr. Hart’s knowledge of Keynesian economics and overall ability to take a very complicated topic and explain it in a relatively simple way. So it was a pleasure to get Mr. Hart on with Doc Thompson to give half a million listeners a basic, free class in economics that some of the brightest in this country could only get by taking Harts class at Miami University, as Paul Ryan had.

In my mind Paul Ryan’s plan doesn’t go far enough. To me, if the goal for a smaller government is desired, then naturally employees of the federal government will be decreased dramatically, which has to happen. As proven with the school budget issues, it is labor costs that are the big budget breaker in public school. Unions took advantage of the housing bubble. But people were willing to vote in favor of higher taxes because the value of their property showed high on paper, so because Americans are generous by nature, they passed their local levies. They didn’t pay attention to the outrageous pay increases the teachers gave themselves, or the police and firefighters. That group of public employee is no different from congressman and city council members that give themselves pay increases. Yet here we are, in a budget crunch, the housing bubble burst so taxpayers have to look at the actual value of their money, and are learning that they’ve been scammed, and the feeling isn’t pleasant.

On top of the high cost of the public employee, there is the cost of corruption. Lobbyists are a major problem. But waste is the worst. Medicare alone costs over $60 billion each year. There is simply no way to balance any kind of budget when so many people are benefiting off the waste and corruption of these major government programs. You can read the source article for the $60 billion in waste here:

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/medicare-fraud-costs-taxpayers-60-billion-year/story?id=10126555

 

If you want to know who the thieves are, just listen to the people who criticize any kind of reform such as what Paul Ryan proposed. Paul built his plan based on the sound economics of one of the countries finest economics professors from one of the countries finest universities. Are those critics against Ryan’s plan because the economic theory is wrong? No, it’s because the critics are using Keynesian economics to plunder money for themselves and they want the money train to keep on rolling at tax payer expense.

Keynesian economics also called (Keynesianism and Keynesian theory) is a macroeconomic theory based on the ideas of 20th century English economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle.[1] The theories forming the basis of Keynesian economics were first presented in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in 1936; the interpretations of Keynes are contentious, and several schools of thought claim his legacy.
Read the rest of that article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments. He greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and advocated the use of fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, as well as its various offshoots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

Keynesian economics does not work as explained by Rich Hart. It can now be officially declared that Keynesian economics is the economics of socialism which Britain was experimenting with under thinkers like Keynes. Public officials like Obama, and those who work in modern government know that Keynesian economics does not work, yet they support it because they either desire the results of a collapsing economy, or they have no stomach for the change in the status quo.

This isn’t hard to imagine. Most people work in an occupation where they know things are wrong, but they proceed on because they don’t want to upset the applecart of their income. In politics, we’ve made public service so lucrative, so highly paid, that politicians will lie, steal, cheat, manipulate, whatever it takes to keep their job. They’ll do this because they tend to be low quality people to begin with, and could not in their wildest dreams perform a private sector job and make as much money as they can in government. Look at Anthony Weiner and how he’s holding onto his job with both hands. He’s doing that because he simply couldn’t work anywhere else. Who’d hire him? A lobbyist? Maybe one of them, but he couldn’t work for any legitimate company. And he knows it. Weiner like the rest of his co-workers in congress and the senate know that Keynesian economics is their ticket to salvation and the good people who pay their salaries don’t want to deal with the complicated nature of economics, so the scam is never dealt with, and the looters know it.

If there is ever to be any real reform in the United States, American’s have to take some interest in economic activity. Citizens need to push to simplify the terminology so they can understand economics, they need to force the budgets to become smaller so waste and corruption cannot be so easily hidden in the details, and this is something that must happen, if any preservation of America is to take place.

So go back and listen to Rich Hart again, and again and begin your economic education so that you can begin to understand the forces that are working against you and why, because it will take more than one or two people to fix this problem. It will take a majority of the nation. This is why the looters fear the Tea Party, because if the nation begins to pay attention, the game is over for them. They’ve already made their bets that people will openly chose to stay asleep. Only time will tell what fate delivers.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Carbon Party, Wine, Motorcycles and the Tea Party: Why Environmental Wacko’s are big business con artists

It was a glorious June 12th, 2011 afternoon. Doc Thompson was hosting a Carbon Party, a gathering that was needed in order to off-set all the greenie weenies as we’ve come to affectionately refer to those pushing a political green movement. Listen here to Doc Thompson speaking with radio personality Matt Clark  talk radio host on WAAM Talk 1600 from Michigan the night before.

It was ironic that this carbon consuming event was held at a winery, a place that would typically be associated with environmentalist. But then when logic presents itself, all the people present were celebrating nature. Trees and all plant life consume carbon-dioxide. In fact, the more carbon dioxide produced the better for all the plant life shown in this video of the event where Doc Thompson was the master of ceremonies and spoke of some of the hypocrisy involved in the green movement, which was quite funny.

As I watched Doc’s speech and spoke with him throughout the afternoon, and spoke with others that were present, it was apparent that here, with the 200 or so people who showed up for an event in the middle of the countryside on a Sunday afternoon when there were thousands of other things to do with that time, these are the guardians of America in this modern age. It was those people as I mentioned in my report from the Glenn Beck event in Wilmington, Ohio that are the hope for America’s future.

The people came from all backgrounds, there were young, there were old, there were bikers, there were yuppies. There were politicians, business men, and nature enthusiasts. What we all had in common was a memory and recognition of all the B.S that the environmental advocates have professed with such religious fervor that logic has been abandoned.

What came to my mind was Al Gore, the pot smoking hippie congressman from Tennessee that seems to have lost all his brain cells during his college days and has lost the opportunity to think. All he seems able to do is repeat what is told to him, and he’s turned the green movement into his hippie quest established in the haze of marijuana smoke. One would hope that a grown man would have evolved like most people do in their lives to a level of higher wisdom gaining an understanding of the symbiotic relationship that humans play in the greater scheme of the environment. Such childish notions as those espoused by Gore and his financial backers can only see life from the point of view of the environment. And the reason is that they really see profit for themselves in the green movement, so like most things, the environmental wacko’s, the greenie weenies, the hippies, the dope headed geeks, the burnt-out politician that cooked their brain in college over drug use see the environment as their ticket to prosperity and a method to achieve their childish world view.

Al Gore would be virtually useless as a human being if he did not enter politics, loot money from the tax payer using emotional jargon, or allowing his name to be used by the socialist oriented green movement to be a mouth piece and front man for their aims.

I recently watched The Social Network, which is about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. Zuckerberg is obviously a highly intelligent guy that was able to write code for computer programs. But there are a lot of geniuses out there. Mark wanted revenge on a girlfriend that found his personality, like many did, repulsive. Without Facebook, Mark would just be another obscure geek. However, because the code of his program was able to crawl through existing data bases and match up similar people with interests he invented something that was highly lucrative to the snoopy aspect of human nature, that desire to be an exhibitionist but doing so behind a curtain of protection. Meanwhile users willingly provide information about themselves that companies would spend millions to get a hold of, spending habits, behavior patterns, demographic information, and family relationships, Facebook is that ant trap where the sweet nectar of the trap proves too lucrative for the logical mind to resist. Mark and his partners didn’t know how to make money with Facebook, until he met the ambitious Sean Parker who had worked with Napster and had extensive experience with the consequences of taking on the music industry with free downloads. The money wasn’t in the free software, it was in court settlements and the threat of what that software could do to existing companies. In effect, Sean Parker was nothing more than a pirate that Mark picked up on and learned to use to his advantage. Zuckerberg sold out to a company of investors that saw more money than just advertising revenue in Facebook. It was the databases that Facebook could create on people who made Facebook worth 25 billion dollars. Think about it, 25 billion dollars for a free service. It’s an ant trap people, sorry.

But this isn’t about Facebook. It’s about looters. Zuckerberg to this day is Time Magazines man of the year, President Obama has private conversations with him, but in reality he is simply a looter that made a free service out of revenge against his girlfriend. He made a weapon that makes it easier for other looters to gather information they can use to exploit the public. Does that make Zuckerberg a bad guy, no. He’s a computer hacker, just like his friend Sean Parker. They are thieves that just like pirates took their plunder, and they had something valuable to other looters, which is an information gathering service. I use the Zuckerberg story because everyone can relate, because most people use Facebook and know who Zuckerberg is. With that definition of a looter established, then my feelings about Al Gore can be illustrated.

I remember when Gore said he invented the internet. It’s been a joke for years. I find it bewildering that in Gores mind he could even say or believe such a thing. But he says it, and seems to believe it. He has the mind of a looter, so truth has no value to people like Al Gore. All that matters is images and how people like him can use images to loot money from people, or better yet, convince people to give him money without bloodshed, or violence. The worst kind of looter is the type of person that convinces people to give away their money while believing they are doing it for their own good.

I remember back in the 90’s when Al Gore was vice-president when the Ohio River flooded heavily down in Cincinnati. Al Gore came to town to show “federal concern” over the queen city. When he arrived the TV cameras were rolling down by the river where a large dry area along the river bank provided plenty of room for cameras, reporters and other VIP’s had gathered. Al Gore showed up and wadded out into the water with his shoes on and suit, knowing that the cameras would capture his action and exaggerate the situation. The people present all scratched their heads and wondered why Gore was standing in the water when there was plenty of dry land. But they were thinking with logic, not with the mind of a looter. Gore, the looter, later went on TV to say that the Ohio River was flooding because of global warming.

Years and years of this kind of looting from people like Gore has went on, and people scratch their heads but don’t take the time to put two and two together. Why would a government even be involved in selling carbon credits? Because it’s a scam, just like Facebook is a scam to get people to put their personal activity and personal connections into a giant data base daily, the green movement is a scam to steal money from people over nothing.

One of the reasons the Carbon Party was such a great event was because it was attended by people with common sense, who all behaved with a level of intelligence and an ability to think, so the wine tasted better because the company was good.

Before I left the event that day Doc Thompson and I were talking, he was holding a large cigar in his mouth as a line of his radio fans were gathered next to him to meet him, hungry for his attention. “I don’t want to tie you up, Doc. Your fans are waiting. But I’m glad you put this whole thing together. It’s a wonderful day, people have a chance to taste what America is supposed to be,” I said to him.

Doc rolled the cigar in his lips so he could properly articulate speech, “Great isn’t it.”

Yes it was. The smell of hot dogs, hamburgers, beer, wine and the gentle breeze that blew in from the west which we could see over the horizon of the earth filled our senses. People were happy, and nature was something we all were openly enjoying. But I realized that the primary reason we were having so much fun was because the event was free of looters, lairs and other manipulators of the facts whose true motive is to steal money for their own plunder, and using the mask of a legitimate cause to do it.

That’s what the Carbon Party was celebrating, truth, relaxation, and understanding in an environment that was the best and most pristine that planet earth and the mind of man can create together. It was a wonderful event.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

No Lakota Levy Group Offers Support to a Levy in 2012: Nooooooooooooooooo Waaaaaaaaaayyyy!

As reported in the West Chester Buzz at the Cincinnati Enquire website, the No Lakota Group offers to support the Lakota School Levy in 2012.  Clarification must be presented since my site has been flooded by curious readers. 

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2011/06/14/nolakota-offers-to-support-school-levy-in-2012/

For those who don’t know who Mark Sennet is, he’s NOT in any of these clips. As it has been for years, I will still be advocating against higher taxes. Mark’s decision to make some sort of deal with the Lakota School Board is strangely out-of-place. As anyone can see from this video clip, Mark and many others could leave the No Lakota Levy movement, and I could still continue without any problem.

The reality is this…….Mark Sennet, who is a member of the No Lakota Levy Group did speak at the board meeting on June 13th, 2011, and did make such a statement as to offer support of the levy in 2012.  However, Mark was speaking individually, or at a maximum the developers that are in our group who may wish to join him, but for the rest of us, we will still be standing against any proposed levy in the school district of Lakota.

As a businessman, I am surprised by Mark’s comments.  My goals have been to bring down the cost of education, and further tax money toward a school district is simply not in the equation.  However, not everyone is working for the same objective, and obviously, there is some politics involved in this decision by Mark. 

So for those of you who don’t want to see your taxes increase, rest assured.  The No Lakota Levy Group will still function.  Even if all the developers withdrawal their support, there are still many hundreds of people who have volunteered their time and money to help with a campaign.  There will be more than enough resistance to defeat any future  school  levies. 

Some of the stories that are taking place around the Lakota district, such as parents organizing sports in their neighborhood cul-de-sacs and car pooling kids to museums are wonderful stories.  Parents should have been doing that kind of thing all along, and cutting the budget to these activities have brought out the best in our community.  Throwing money at a child’s education is almost the same as throwing money into a fire.  It takes parents that want to be involved in a child’s life.  If a community just tosses money into a bottomless pit of union expectation, which is public education, they can expect that money to be wasted.  That is why Mark’s comments surprise me. 

But many of our members that are from the developing community are sitting on properties that they can’t sell or lease, so their judgment toward levies is that they don’t want to pay an unfair amount of money in taxes for property that isn’t doing what they invested in.  In a good economy they are the first to support a levy, because they built the homes which added to the school population.  So for many of them, the taxes aren’t an issue as long as they can move their property. 
For people like me however, I plan to live in the district for a long time, and the taxes are too high right now, let alone in the future.  The expectation of cost needs to come down, so I will continue to fight that issue as I always have. 

So don’t worry.  We have plenty of supporters against a levy right now.  If Mark and his friends want to cross over to the other side, that’s perfectly fine.  It won’t have an impact on the end result.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Tail of the Dragon Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You: Action, philosophy, romance, and a celebration of America’s roots

It is now official; American Publishing will be bringing my new book Tail of the Dragon to bookstores in 2012 and are committed to giving life to this stunning story. It will now proceed into a phase where their editor and I will work on the final manuscript in the coming months. This process could take up to a year which is why the book is scheduled for a 2012 delivery. It is more fitting for a release during that year because of the presidential election that is coming up.

In the book tentatively called, Tail of the Dragon, the governor in Tennessee is making a presidential run for the White House and he’s putting a lot of police on the street to help his campaign with public perception and the F.O.P union. However, to pay for those police officers, the various districts all over the state have increased their citation rates as a way to generate revenue, to cover the costs the governor has imposed upon the tax payers of Tennessee.

I’ve made it well-known on these pages how I feel about taxes and abuse by authority, so the issues of this story is something I feel very passionate about, more passionate than I do over education issues. I have a long history with law enforcement, much of it not good, and a long history with politicians. Law enforcement imposes the law that politicians create. If you believe as I do, that a majority of the politicians are simply corrupt at heart, lured into office because they lack the confidence to perform private sector work, and attempt to justify their positions by creating more laws, then the process is inherently broken, and it’s wrong to ask a tax payer to pay the salary of an unneeded police officer just so a politician wants to pander to the public’s desire for safety, then use those officers to write citations against those same tax payers as another way to generate money for the state, which turns out to be a disguised tax.

One of the best places in the country where this conflict can be seen is in Tennessee, on the western frontier of the Smoky Mountains in a place known the world over as one of the greatest roads ever built, it’s called, The Tail of the Dragon, it’s 318 curves in an 11 mile stretch of RT 129 that lures every car enthusiast, race car driver, motorcyclist, automotive engineer, and photographer in the country to test their abilities on it.

With speed, tourists, and radical bikers all concentrated in a known area where the law is openly being broken, the temptation of the Tennessee Highway Patrol to gather their citation quotas are too lucrative. Citation abuse is rampant as seen in the following videos.

I set the story of my book in this particular region because I’ve run the Dragon with my wife, daughter and son-in-law and saw the conflict there as a larger metaphor for what is going on in the rest of the country. The south is still refreshingly anti-progressive, so their resistance to progressive legislation is openly hostile. Tennessee is interesting because it is the state of Al Gore, yet they still embrace confederate battle flags at their tourism sites, so a kind of battle is being waged among progressive politicians and the kind of fans that love NASCAR.

The large resort town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee is very close to the Tail of the Dragon, so I set out to tell a romantic story of a couple that goes to that mountain town in order to rekindle their marriage and run the Dragon on their new motorcycle.

Many of the people who run the Dragon view getting pulled over by the cops there as a rite of passage. They figure the fines are worth it, for the chance to run the Dragon. After all, so many people run the Dragon on a Saturday afternoon that the police can’t pull over everyone. So part of the thrill is getting away with speeding on the Dragon and running the gauntlet of police without a fine. In this next video there are a couple of motorcycle riders that were pulled over even though they were driving pretty slow.

The premise behind my new book is this; what would happen if our couple going to the Smoky Mountains to put a spark into their marriage and have a little fun on their motorcycle were pulled over by the aggressive Tennessee Highway Patrol and refused to recognize the authority of the officers and the obvious money scam that is going on. What follows is a remarkable story about the meaning of life; the role of government, the desire for freedom, and the spirit of individuality as the entire reach of law enforcement both local and federal descend upon the couple to force compliance to the law.
Deep in the culture of America, and the south in particular is a love of thumbing their noses at the law, which in my opinion is a healthy system of checks and balances. It is good to dislike too much authority and southern culture still embraces such rebellion.

It is sort of a sad state of our country and its heritage that The Dukes of Hazard, a TV show from the 70’s and early 80’s are still so beloved by millions of Americans, and in the south, the General Lee (car) could run for president and be elected. It’s sad because in the coastal cultures of America, (New York and Los Angeles) the need for this rebellious heritage has been ignored in favor of progressive agendas, so new material has not been produced to fulfill the obvious hunger for this type of entertainment, leaving a large part of America still yearning for such an old TV show.

It is in such shows that the hearts and minds of the young live out their inner desire to be truly free of authority and to live their lives of their own accord, without the government trying to stick their noses into their business. This tendency is still strong in the south because many of the people from that region are the descendents of moonshiners from the prohibition age, where progressives removed alcohol from American culture in the 1920’s. It was the moonshiners that started NASCAR and in Gatlinburg to this very day moonshine is still an important part of the cultural heritage, a heritage that dislikes too much authority.

This is why the typical past time among many young men and hot-blooded women on a Saturday afternoon is a NASCAR race, or a trip to the local drag strip to race the cars they’ve spent all week working on.

This is why riders on the Tail of the Dragon are so willing to risk themselves, and financial penalties on a quest for thrills and freedom, sometimes to tragic results.

Even big named celebrities make frequent runs to the Dragon. Here is a charity run organized by Kyle Petty. Such sites are common at the Dragon. Thousands of motorcycles and cars run that stretch of road every day.

One of the reasons places like Gatlinburg are so popular and relaxing is similar to Key West, Florida. There is an open distaste for the law and people can get away from the politics of their jobs, their communities, their states, and their nation, and relish in a place where honesty is embraced and common sense rules.

I look forward to delivering to America a book that will embrace everything shown here and more, in a book that needed to be written because nobody else has done it. It is a book that is uniquely about American culture and its true desires.

So start looking forward to a unique literary experience that will take you on a journey that only a madman would seek. On that journey essential truths will be revealed about the nature and character of the American spirit, and it all starts by simply refusing to submit to authority and the chain reaction of events that are destined to follow.

2012 is not that far away………………………..I promise. Soon you will be able to read, Tail of the Dragon at a book store near you.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Photographic Genius at Newport on the Levee: The art of an adventurous soul

My daughter, Brooke did a marvelous thing, she is one of the featured artists who is displaying their work at the Stonebrook Winery at Newport on the Levee. They put her photography work on a wall there and she wanted to bring her mom and me down to have a look.

It wasn’t difficult. As I’ve discussed, my wife and I love Newport on the Levee. We love the Irish Pub there, and we love Mitchell’s Fish Market. In fact, one of the best dishes my wife makes is Voodoo Shrimp that the cook at Mitchell’s in Newport gave her personally. We love the view of the city from Newport on the Levee, so it is with great pleasure that I learned that my daughter was a featured artist.

Here’s her website:

http://www.brooketownsendphotography.com/

My daughter is a tenacious photographer. The world is her playground and everything is a subject of her art. In fact, she and her sister are excessively creative people who have a unique perspective on the world, and they capture those perspectives in their work.

My son-in-law, my wife, and my two daughters hit the levee in the sporadic rain as frequent lightning sizzled across the sky. This created some unusually wonderful light over the cityscape of Cincinnati while along the river was an Italian Festival complete with funhouses, Ferris wheels and Italian food of every kind mixed with the fresh rain and persistent fragrance of the Ohio River.

While walking through the winery, it was a pleasure to see patrons looking over my daughters work while sipping from their glasses of wine. I sat in a rocking chair hand-made by a retired engineer and relished it’s comfort as I watched my daughter answer questions about her work and discuss the aesthetic relationships between her nature photography and her self-portraits. Naturally her political photography is stunning, and her Washington D.C. pictures are unlike any I and many others have ever seen.

One of the greatest pleasures in life is to create something that wasn’t there before you made it and then share that with people to enjoy. Among those of us present, my youngest daughter is an excellent illustrator, web designer and photographer in her own right, of course my daughter being featured, my son-in-law a social network guru and entrepreneur. My wife has made a blanket for every child and married couple brought into our family for almost two decades, and I’ve written books, designed t-shirts, been a Wild West performer, a screen writer, an independent filmmaker, and I’ve started and ran several businesses, so among us we’ve had a lot of experience. Every endeavor doesn’t work out, in fact most don’t, but it never gets old to start a new venture and study the dazzle on customer’s faces when they experience something they never would have felt if the artist had not brought those emotions about through some form of art.

If you are looking for that special something to put on your wall that needs some life and energy injected there, go down to the Newport on the Levee Stonebrook Winery and Art Gallery and look up Brooke Townsend. She’ll be the most spectacular photography at the exhibit, so you won’t miss it, and do yourself a favor, and get yourself a gift of vision that will give back to you each time you look at it. And enjoy the journey of getting there, because Newport on the Levee is always a fun place to visit.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com