Members of Mitt Romney’s team were out ahead of the his visit to Cincinnati looking for spots to present his platform to Southern Ohio voters. They wisely stopped by the Grand Ole Pub in West Chester, Ohio checking that wonderful establishment as a possible stop on the Romney campaign trail. I heard this while dining with friends for lunch at the Grand Ole Puband admired that it showed some real understanding of West Chester politics from the Romeny team. For those who don’t know about the Grand Ole Pub, here is their website.
So a note to team Romney, if your schedule doesn’t allow for a trip to the Grand Ole Pubon this most recent June trip, you will want to make a visit there on an upcoming stop in Ohio. It is well known throughout the entire country that the south eastern corner of Butler County is one of the most conservative and constitutionally hungry voting districts in the entire nation and the Grand Ole Pub is one of the favorite dining establishments of the two major Cincinnati Tea Party groups that are only seperated by 5 miles.
If Mitt Romney wants to touch the pulse of Southern Ohio politics, he must stop by the Grand Ole Pub. His potential voters love the Grand Ole Puband he will too!
Does anyone remember when President Obama told America right after his election in 2008 that The United States had a lot to learn from Europe, and that we should strive to be more like them as a nation? Now, as Spain is begging for a financial bailout, Greece is locked in a civil war in the it’s streets between the communists and Nazi parties, France is collapsing under it’s newly elected socialist president and Italy is failing especially in their economy and is not far behind Spain. When President Obama pointed at Europe and stated that The United States should be more like them, he was saying that it was socialism that America needed to emulate, and within four years of open socialism from the start of Obama’s presidency to the end of it, Europe is collapsing under economic failures directly created by the small little book called The Communist Manifesto. Those who followed the economic policies of Karl Marx have led their nations to financial ruin.
In America, thankfully not quite too late, some are beginning to see the socialist tendencies being taught in our schools and openly advocated by our government. Some in the Tea Party movements and other liberty groups are beginning to fight back in an attempt to save the capitalism that built America from the encroachment of communism. Most notably, the recall election in Wisconsin to remove Scott Walker as governor was the grand attempt by socialist labor unions to maintain their grip on economic power and dedication to expand socialism to every corner of the world.
Yet in the city of Chicago, President Obama’s favorite city, it is socialism that rules still as the teachers union for the Chicago Public School system voted by a margin of more than 75% of it’s members to impose a potential strike in mid-August 2012 if the CPS management cannot come to contract terms with the Chicago Teacher’s Union which expires on June 30th 2012. You can read the announcement of this strike at the website of Progress Illinois seen below, which is Illinois version of Progress Ohio. (Special note, all such “progress” groups are essentially socialist/communist advocates. They use the name “progress” to hide their real intentions, which is to follow the path of Europe. So beware of them all. They are anti-capitalist—and therefore anti-American.)
It is clear in this proposed Chicago teachers strike why the unions are against voucher schools and privately run schools, because under capitalism, if free enterprise were involved in education, the government schools would not be able to maintain a monopoly and tactics like these massive teacher strikes would not work, because parents would have options in case their children’s school teachers did strike.
The issues that the CTU wish to strike over are of course wages. Currently, the average wage rate for CTU teachers is $69,000 and under the new contract the CTU wants a 29% increase over that amount. Another stipulation is the teachers of the CTU are upset that the teacher work day will increase by ten percent from 420 minutes to 460 minutes a day. At 460 minutes of contracted work, that comes out to a work day of 7.6 hours. The audacity of such expectations is that those CTU employees are so incredibly out of touch from what the average American is experiencing that they don’t see that such an expectation is ridiculously foolish. The CTU employees are suffering from the same inflated viewpoint that citizens in Europe expect which is bankrupting the entire Euro zone.
The first thing any rational person would ask when listening to the CTU demands is how on earth could they expect in this day and age to succeed with this insane, and unprecedented strike attempt. Well, the answer is in whom the mayor of Chicago is, the former White House Obama heel licker Rahm Emanuel, who at his heart is a big time progressive, pro union advocate. The union leaders of the CTU would like the public to believe they are locked in a mortal battle with the Mayor Emanuel, but I will declare this—that the whole thing is a political stunt and the Mayor is in on the act.
Emanuel and the labor leaders of the CTU plan to allow the threat of a strike to percolate and gain media attention during the summer of 2012, and at the last-minute, Emanuel and the union leaders will strike a deal, and both parties will declare victory over the charade imposed upon the tax payers of Chicago. Their combined hopes, along with the White House are that unions all over America will use Chicago as an example of strength and follow with the same type of strike attempts in every city in the nation. The unions desire a victory after the paralyzing loss in Wisconsin so they are staging one in Chicago with the progressive Mayor Emanuel to prove that the extortion attempts of old still work, before the unions lose all their members due to ineffectiveness.
The goal for all involved is not to bring relief to the tax payers of Chicago or even to help one single child, but to spread the socialism which is crushing Europe all over America. The unions realize that they must move fast, or they will be completely out of power within a few years, so they need to radicalize their base with a victory in Chicago, which Rahm Emanuel is poised to give them.
The fight in Chicago is nothing more than a WWF wrestling match. The victors are already determined, and are simply staging a fight on behalf of the American people. The staged fight is designed to breathe life into unions bent over with defeat as tax payers everywhere are beginning to fight back. Progressive know that if they don’t rally their troops now, it will be over for them in America very soon, because Europe is failing miserably under socialism/communism and the dream of a communist worldwide utopia so fantasized by the political left for so many years is quickly evaporating like a puddle of water on a sidewalk in Columbia, South America. It is communism that these progressives on both sides of the Chicago labor dispute desire, only they won’t tell the taxpayers that. What they show is a mayor who must come to the negotiating table with the CTU, forced there by the threat of a strike, to negotiate a collective-bargaining agreement and preserve the union way of life into the future. Their attempt is as futile as the fools of Europe marching in the streets and setting police officers on fire to protest free government support for their lazy, unproductive lives. And such a description is the antithesis of your local school teacher who complains that $69,000 a year is not enough money for only working 7.8 hours a day.
Cory Stark from Channel 19 came to see me for what will most likely be my last interview over the Lakota school system for quite some time. Lakota has agreed not to put a levy on the ballot in 2012 so I gave Cory my final thoughts on the matter. Click to see the article and video interview.
They sent me a T-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, a pen, a notebook, and a thank you note, which meant a lot coming from a company that I have silently been very loyal to for a number of years. I had just enough time to open the box and scan through the items before getting ready to take my kids and their significant others out to the movie theater to see the long-awaited Prometheus. So I put on my new Mello Yello T-shirt, and my Mello Yello hat, and I grabbed the Mello Yello notebook with pen to give to my oldest daughter, and we left for the movie.
Of course I looked like a walking billboard for Mello Yello when my daughter let me into their townhouse where I gave her the notebook. She tends to write almost as much as I do, so I knew she would put it to good use. I also knew my kids would get a kick out of seeing all the Mello Yello gear, because in our family, it’s well known my love of Mello Yello. We don’t all get together as easily as we used to because we all have busy lives, so getting the Mello Yello clothing in time for our long-planned movie was a nice addition to a wonderful evening.
For Prometheus my wife wanted to see it on the IMAX screen at Showcase Cinemas in Springdale, which I think is the best movie screen in the Cincinnati area. Of course the film was in 3D like they all are these days, just like film producers promised when they flew me out to Los Angeles a few years ago to do a fire whip sequence and prove out the use of a 3D camera system for Real D 3D with Peter Facinelli. I had at that time a lot of skepticism that audiences would flock to theaters to put on 3D glasses and watch a movie with just a little extra thrill factor. Women who go out on dates spending a lot of time fixing up their hair just right I didn’t think would be interested in putting on glasses that would smear their make-up. People who naturally wear glasses have to now look through two glasses to see anything in a 3D movie, which is a pain in the neck. But Hollywood was committed to the idea of 3D just prior to Obama becoming president because they were pushed by theaters owners all over the United States to justify their investments in state of the art projection systems, giant theaters, and comfortable seating.
Hollywood like the education industry is facing the same kind of economic bubble that the housing industry has already experienced, and it’s bursting. In Hollywood, it was the films of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in the 1980’s that set the modern idea of what a “blockbuster” was. Every year since the release of E.T. and the last of the original Star Wars films Hollywood has tried to copy the box office numbers of those films by pushing for larger stunts, larger and louder explosions, and faster paced film techniques driven largely by the music video generation created by MTV. Most of the films Hollywood produce each year falls short of executive expectations, but the pressure has been on for quite some time to get larger box office totals as the entertainment unions have driven up the financial expectations higher and higher. Leading actors now for a picture make between $20 million to $30 million, so budgets for a typical summer blockbuster are now up over $150 million dollars routinely. Hollywood has increasingly had to rely on overseas sales to complement their box office take domestically in order to justify their massive up front investments. Revenue streams are changing for the industry as well, as ticket prices have went up to compensate the increasingly high budgets for films, technology has made it so people can often watch films at home more comfortably than at a movie theater. Just the other day I was at Wal-Mart where I looked at a beautiful 70” big screen LCD television that was just over $2,000 dollars. Hollywood now has to find a way to give people an experience at the theater that they can’t get at home, so 3D is their solution. And it’s failing.
I say 3D is failing not with pleasure in my voice, but sadness. I love the movie theater experience, which is why I made a tremendous ritual of taking all my kids to a movie and spending $100 on tickets that cost over $15 each to see Prometheus with my Mello Yello gear on to create memories that will last a lifetime. I wanted them to have a great night out at the movies where going to the theater is like going to a sacred mythic temple as modern mythology is bestowed upon the moviegoer.
Prior to our film beginning I watched the previews for the newest rendition of Spiderman, and Batman, and half a dozen 3D extravaganzas that I could see will end up in the same scrap heap as Battleship and John Carter. It’s not to say that those films are bad, or don’t have a market niche to fill, but studios are forced to spend over $100 million to make those films because of expectations, and ticket prices are simply too high, most people will wait to watch those films on video, or Netflix. Every movie cannot be Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean, or The Avengers. Most Hollywood producers are fearful to attempt these days to develop original material because the risk is simply too great. Even a popular book like John Carter may not be enough to guarantee success. As I watched the previews prior to Prometheus, I knew that 75% of those films would be box office disappointments. They were dead before they have even arrived, because of the laws of quality described in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The Hollywood producers and entertainment agents more than ever are chasing dreams like the founders of California’s gold rush. They are digging for gold where it’s been discovered instead of looking where nobody has discovered it yet, because they are functioning in the back of the “train” so to speak.
Needless to say the film I took my family to Prometheus was spectacular, and it should have been for $100 bucks. I had no regrets in seeing that movie especially since everyone enjoyed the film tremendously. But as I stood in the lobby of Showcase Cinemas afterward in my bright yellow Mello Yello gear a wave of sadness swept over me realizing that the financial structure that made the whole movie theater business run was about to bust. Prometheus represented the best that Hollywood had to offer, and at $15 dollars a ticket, it barely seemed worth it. I can’t image paying that kind of price for a lesser movie, yet the movie industry is counting on it, and they will be disappointed.
The same holds true in the movie industry as it does with President Obama not understanding that European economic models built around socialism is the cause of their failure, and The United States allowing for a mixed economy of a little socialism here and there sprinkled with bits of capitalism is what has caused Obama’s failed economy during his presidency. He’s as clueless as the typical film executive who will find themselves out of a job in a couple of years because their films failed to meet the market expectations. Hollywood is looking for the Justice League to fill the market void of George Lucas retiring. That was on my mind because just a few days before Mello Yello sent me all that merchandise I received a press release from Lucasfilm stating Lucas was officially retiring, and that Kathleen Kennedy was stepping in to help fill the void at that billion dollar film company. Kennedy is a long time assistant to many Spielberg films and now she’s going to work full-time at Lucasfilm. This is a serious indication that Hollywood’s creative core is aging, and moving on to other things, and the next generations of Hollywood filmmakers and other above-the-line talent are functioning from the back of Pirsig’s quality train, and will fail under the heavy expectations.
I thought it was appropriate that I was wearing a Mello Yello T-shirt on a night when I was having all these thoughts. Way back in 1994 and 1995 I wanted to buy a Mello Yello T-shirt, but then frustrated executives at Coca Cola were upset that the soft drink did not perform equivalent to Mountain Dew, so they pulled the drink for a bit and changed it to the soft drink “Serge,” so I didn’t get my Mello Yello shirt. This went on for a while until executives at the Coca Cola Company realized that this would not boost their sales, so they had sacrificed a very good drink just because it arrived late to the marketing gate, and if they had held strong, they might have made real gains through the late 90’s into the next century. Mello Yello made its triumphant return slowly, and is just now beginning to be purchased in the northern states of America. The same day I went to Wal-Mart to see the big screen television, they had three 12 packs of Mello Yello on their shelf. My wife bought all three of them. A couple of years ago, Wal-Mart in Ohio did not carry Mello Yello at all.
Mello Yello has always been a great drink, but it was judged based on the blockbuster success of Mountain Dew, and it suffered as a result. The same thing is about to happen in the film industry. Many films will suffer as film executives lose their jobs in the years to come due to the entertainment bubble collapsing under the enormous weight of expectation. And like Mello Yello, I have my brands of filmmakers that I support valiantly, and Ridley Scott is one of them. When my “brands” make a film that I know they poured their heart and soul into it, I go and see them. The next film I feel passionate about will be Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. I will pay top dollar to see that movie as a kind of vote for what I think success in a movie should be, to help curb the disappointment from an industry that expects too much, and is collapsing under inflated opinions. Twenty years from now, like my previous twenty years of supporting Mello Yello, I’m sure some of these very good film studios will re-emerge from the wreckage that is about to become of the film industry, and I’ll be there to support them as I was to see the great film Prometheus and one of the great offerings of the year from 20th Century Fox.
I proudly put my Mello Yello gear away when I got home that night and contemplated all that you read here today. And because of that, it means more to me than the moment that I opened it. In capitalism, whether it’s a movie, or a soft drink, the idea came from the mind of a capitalist, and millions of people enjoy the results of those thoughts—and every instance is a thing of beauty. I cherish Mello Yello because it’s been through so much as a company and even with all that, they still have the swagger about them to send me a box full of Mello Yello fun on the eve of taking my family to see the film Prometheus. It was an evening of ideas, and capitalism, and crushing expectations. But at the end of the day, it is the ideas that burn not so much brightest, but longest that survive. And Mello Yello survives, in the same way that many others will endure as great minds who think at the front of the train emerge to give great ideas a place to materialize. Each time I wear my Mello Yello T-shirt, it will not be out of blind devotion to a soft drink, but out of reverence to a company that I cherish because it makes a great product, and has had the tenacity to weather the storms of economic betrayal to arrive at a day when it can please the taste buds of millions.
For the first time in over a year, I agree with the Lakota School Board. They should not put a levy on the ballot this November for the 2012 election. At this time, the current board president Ben Dibble is giving indications that they will not pursue a levy request on the fall ballot. This is a good thing in that it respects the wishes of the voters in the last three elections, and recognizes the economic conditions of the community. To put the community through another dog fight in a year when weary home buyers might not wish to purchase a home in the Lakota district because our campaign fight has been on the radio and in the papers both locally and nationally each week would not be wise.
It was nearly a year ago when I attended a school board meeting and everyone was getting along for the first time in a long time. I spoke openly with several members of the board, and key administrators prior to their last levy attempt. Lakota seemed to be on the mend, and a new superintendent was coming to help balance the budget.
When Superintendent Mantia came from Pickerington, she sat down with me and the members of No Lakota Levy and attempted to tell us what we wanted to hear, which kept the peace for a few weeks. But behind the scenes, there was scheming going on, which of course got back to me. Another election came and the proposed tax increase was defeated by over 18,000 votes. Some of the credit for that loss could certainly be given to those of us who brought information to the public about how ridiculous much of the current Lakota spending was. But much of the loss can be attributed to the declining housing market. Residents used to be generous with levy increases because the values of their homes were well outpacing the taxes. Now that taxes are high, and prices are falling, people don’t have the extra money to throw away at a public school, and many businesses are barely hanging on by a thread. A tax increase just might do many of them in, with an economic climate that by all indications in hindsight will be called a great depression.
After that November 2011 defeat a small band of pro levy supporters decided they were going to get me back for “hurting” their children’s lives by denying more tax money to the school. The belief was that if No Lakota Levy could be talked out of working with me, the tax opposition would be removed. What these agents of seduction did not know was that it was the members of No Lakota Levy who approached me after I did my own independent work in fighting the levy in the spring of 2010 to join forces and help them. My behavior was the same as it had always been, I brought my supporters with me and expanded their efforts. When Superintendent Mantia and other board members attempted to befriend members of No Lakota Levy who they assumed were the leaders, they left me out of those conversation because they rationalized that I was just the radical “hired” lobbyist that could be fired if the leaders of No Lakota Levy could be convinced.
It is sad that the whole ordeal must be looked upon as a game of winning and losing. Sadly, the losers of this game have managed to punish the parents of the district with extremely high fees for extracurricular activities and busing costs which should all be included with the high taxes we already pay. Ben is right that the budget from the state is not yet set, so there are unknowns. And it’s difficult to tell how much more homes in the Lakota district will lose in further value as a result of the economic conditions. Finally, some Lakota administrators are starting to learn that they can save tremendous amounts of money by combining jobs. This summer there are two assistant superintendents who are retiring, and Lakota is only planning to replace one, which will save a six figure salary, which is significant. If they did that 10 more times to 10 other positions they would save a million dollars. If they did it 20 times, they would save 2 million dollars, then Lakota could afford to have busing, free sports and many other things just by asking the employees to do more, which is quite appropriate under the conditions.
But ultimately, not putting a levy on the ballot in 2012 prevents me from unleashing the mountain of bad PR I am holding to unleash during the next levy attempt. I have not done it yet because I don’t want to scare away potential home buyers. But I also don’t want to see a levy increase ruin community businesses and push people out of their homes. For those in the Lakota district who brag about their $5,500 property tax bill each year and their ability to pay it, they do not understand that $20 or $30 extra in monthly taxes will end many property owners mortgages, because many don’t have the extra money to pay higher taxes due to many economic factors.
The people who have written to me, and campaigned against me who do brag about their ability to pay $5,500 tax bills are typically young. They typically have young children and have been fortunate enough to have good jobs that pay salaries which enable them to have a lifestyle that disregards such a high tax. Since they are young parents they are chemically induced to give “everything” to their children without question, so their decision making skills are greatly lacking and they have a lot of growing up to do. For the rest of us in Lakota, the “old timers” the people who have raised children and understand the costs, and appreciate the value of things, we know that a higher tax will destroy our community, so we are opposed. We also know that circumstances do change in the course of a long life, and many of those $5,500 property tax payers will lose their jobs within the decade and will find they are not so well positioned in the future to pay such a high tax. The radicals of further taxation do not have a blank check to attack those of us with logic. They cannot dish out such aggressive advances without expecting to be attacked back. That is simply not how the game is played. Most of the people I know who have been around for a while think such well paid young parents are fools because they are tossing their money away cheaply, without consideration, and we know there will come a time within the next couple of decades that they will pay dearly for their lack of vision. Such people will not be allowed to destroy our community with their short-sightedness.
But I am personally glad that at least Ben sees the logic of the situation, and it is my hope that the school board will finally begin to manage the money we give them, and not put the community through another bloody levy battle, because there are homes that need to be sold, and leases that need to be signed. Lakota just graduated a lot of students, and there are not more students coming in behind those, so Lakota is looking at a whole decade of declining enrollment and the layoff of hundreds of future employees. A new tax will not be needed for many, many years. Hopefully, the school board will now listen to the 18,000 who voted against the last levy attempt and not the 80 crazy radicals who make a lot of noise, but not much sense. Because the fate of our community will be determined by what happens in 2012 and 2013, and a tax increase would send our district into the category of Princeton, and Evandale, instead of Indian Hill. The choice is always structured around tax rates, because that is the blood of an economy. And it takes leadership to see that blood flow, and be willing to do the hard things to preserve the future with the least restriction to the economy as possible.
There is of course more to the story, which will be revealed soon. But for now, there may be a small period of peace before Lakota seeks again to ask for higher taxes in the form of a levy. If Lakota does good things, I’m happy to report those here as well as the bad things. But Lakota has to give me good things to report, like turning two six figure salary positions into one, to help balance the budget as they did with the assistant superintendent positions. So we’ll see what the future holds, but it’s a good start to hear Lakota talking about managing the money they already have instead of trying to solve their management problems with higher taxes.
When a Mt. Healthy star football player recently graduated his family cheered extensively, according to the Mt. Healthy superintendent. The young man’s family cheered so much that the ceremony was held up by the superintendent untill the cheering stopped. You can see in the clip below how the superintendent purposely stopped the next name from being read off till the arena was once again silent as she had instructed prior to the graduation ceremony. The Mt. Healthy superintendent was working from a political agenda that is spreading across the country in 2012 and the threat of keeping the student’s graduation certification for not following the school rules is not an isolated case in Mt Healthy, Ohio. The superintendent could have allowed the next name to be read, and everyone would have heard, but she purposely stopped the ceremony so she could enforce the nationwide agenda circulating around Department of Education under the leadership of Emperor Obama.
The school for that small display of fanfare from the graduating student’s family felt it had the community authority to enforce twenty hours of community service for not following the school rules. The superintendent of Mt. Healthy and her staff are of course insane in their beliefs, and way out of line. The school even if they did have students sign a document before the ceremony taking responsibility for any outlandish behavior do not have the right to enforce such a measure. The school of Mt. Healthy has forgotten that they are but employees of the parents and students, not a governmental ENFORCER of bureaucratic policies! The effort of the Mt. Healthy superintendent is further proof that public schools are progressive institutions intent on destroying individuality with subtle messages of communism. The Mt. Healthy school district has no authority to force the young graduate or his family to perform any community service as reported by Channel 9 News, yet they did anyway and audaciously proclaimed themselves judge, jury, and executioner.
This behavior exhibits how far reaching public schools see their roles in the modern family, and the intention is to prevent exhibitions of this kind that highlight the efforts of individuals. All the students as mandated by the Obama Department of Education are to be treated equally whether they are black or white, boys or girls, tall or short, skinny or fat, straight or gay, fast or slow, all sounds wonderful taken at face value. But the real intention is not “equality” and “fairness,” but rather selling collectivism by stamping out individuals by discouraging solitary endeavors. This is the same policy that allows progressive politicians to use the so-called “civil rights” movement or “war on woman” to manipulate mass groups of voting blocs to achieve communist aims that are revealed behind the proclamations if looked upon closely. Individual praise is frowned upon in these crusades. It is only sacrifice of the individual for the sake of the collective that they highlight for the good of the masses.
The message sent to the Class of 2012 at Mt. Healthy is not fairness for the next student to be called after all the cheering, but to let every member of the arena know that individual Excepetionalism will not be tolerated. I listened to the Mt. Healthy superintendent give a few interviews defending her position, and the reporters of course pandered to her crimes, but attempting to sell the far-reaching authority of the Mt. Healthy school district on behalf of fairness and maintaining order for future graduations is rather pathetic. This action by the school district of Mt. Healthy is simply a disguise for the real intention, destruction of individual endeavor. At the Mt. Healthy graduation ceremony cheers for the collective Class of 2012 was acceptable. Cheers for individuals as regulated by the Gestapo superintendent of Mt. Healthy are not.
This trend in public education advocated by the teachers and administrators, many of whom function under socialist leaning philosophy to begin with, is to show that individualism is to be scorned, and collectivism embraced. The message that no one child is special is the common mantra of our day–it is the essence of public education. Educators are less concerned about math scores and knowledge of history. Their primary concern is to make sure that students do not believe they are special in any way unless they play a sport that unites the pride of the school in the community. Individuals are not embraced unless they serve the collective institution. Public education through their government monopoly status and big labor unions are pursuing progressive policies at the cost of the local tax payers. In Mt. Healthy the superintendent there attempted to obtain a tax increase the day after a recent failure by sending a message to the community that they will continue to see tax increases bi-annually forever unless they break down and approve the tax hike. School districts like Mt. Healthy behave like this because they do not view individual families as sacred, but simply as part of the collective blob that makes up their district. So they see no reason why everyone should not support their efforts with tax increases as it is the school district that sets the law in communities. That’s why the Mt. Healthy superintendent thinks she has a right to enforce “community service” on the parents of a graduate if the student doesn’t wish to do it.
Tax payers were always told that if they loved their child, they’d vote for a school levy, because public education is essential to creating a well rounded adult. But what we we’re learning is that public education is truly a process of destroying individual identities so that adults will cast away any notions they may have of growing up uniquely. For the proof and a very audacious example of this public education strategy listen to this administrator tell his class of 2012 that the students in the ceremony are “not special” but are in fact much the same. If you take the time to watch through the first couple of minutes you’ll hear this educrat profess that there is a reason all the student’s caps and gowns make them all uniform—because the intent is for them all to be seen collectively, not individually.
The push for collectivism comes from governments desire to live. So long as society is made up of a collective whole, and not a bunch of free thinking individuals, school teachers, tax auditors, and Washington educrats will have jobs serving the collective blob of people lacking individual identity. Individuals who can do for themselves may find they have no use for government, or the silly socialist schools of public education. Government workers at all levels find themselves promoting collectivism instead of the American principles of individualism because that’s the only way they can keep their very lucrative jobs under the monopoly of government schools, is by keeping people from asking any questions and blindly following orders no matter how ridiculous.
The situation in Mt. Healthy is not the only one of its kind, but it deserves special notice, as the parents of the popular student have refused to do the “community service” demanded by the school. The school revealed too much of their real intentions at the graduation ceremony for the Mt. Healthy Class of 2012. And thank goodness they did, so tax payers can really see what they are paying for. Public schools no matter what the community are teaching open socialism with tax payer dollars, and they will continue to do so until communities demand to put a stop to it. These teaching methods come from the Federal Department of Education, so are not alone the work of the Mt Healthy superintendent. But the responsibility to refuse unjust mandates does fall on the individual families who find themselves attacked by these government schools as they attempt to hold the diploma hostage from students in order to force social change upon the community. This tactic by the superintendent at Mt. Healthy is no different than creating pay-for-play sports to push for levy increases, or cutting busing to punish parents for failing a school levy. Or teachers who march on their school boards with threats of strikes to drive up their wage costs. This time, it is the superintendent who seeks to carry out the Obama platform of progressive education which if given the proper name would be called red communism in full bloom. Communism is all about destroying the individual in favor of the collective, and this is what is going on at graduations all over The United States in 2012. And it will continue until communities stop taking it, and decide to push back, like the parents of the student in Mt. Healthy have done. It is parents like those that make America the greatest country on earth. The rest of the world would take the punishment without question, but not in America. And not in Mt. Healthy. As long as parents like that produce children like that star football player, America will be just fine—and the socialism that the schools intend will perish, one school at a time by simply saying “NO” to the authority of the school, “NO” to the mandates from the DOE, and “NO” to more tax increases which promise to bring more of this behavior with more socialist teachers and their ideologies of individual destruction.
This Glenn Beck clip was actually done before the recall election attempt in Wisconsin of Scott Walker but has some wonderful facts that need to be remembered. Now that the unions have lost the election and spent $63 million dollars on a losing effort, and membership is declining fast the progressive left is getting desperate. But their old tricks are now seen and understood by generations who have paved over the thuggish tactics, and they are no longer working.
Be sure to send this to a friend to ensure that the methods of union rule finally come to an end. If a snake comes onto your property or slithers near a loved one, you would not let it go to bite them later. The head of the snake must come off to allow the tail to swing about aimlessly to eventually die, because the snake of labor unions are communism in a capitalist America, and they cannot be allowed to live on. They have shown they cannot coexist without being predators on capitalism, so they leave no choice.
As those who have read it are learning, I inserted some of my personal favorite places and things in my new novel Tail of the Dragon quite on purpose. The picture below is a scene from the book where the supercar in the story is just beginning to receive the kind of damage it will encounter during the greatest car chase in the history of car chases. The $20 million dollar restored Firebird running on vegetable oil through a 700 HP diesel engine conversation sustains tremendous damage through its frequent encounters with police and military forces. Some of the worst damage comes from the .50 caliber machine gun rounds which leave tremendous holes in the heavily armored classic car. But that isn’t the only armor in the picture. Featured in that photograph are my favorite pair of sunglasses called Gargoyles, otherwise known as “EYE ARMOR,” since they are reputed to deflect a .22 caliber bullet. In my novel Gargoyle sunglasses are the preferred sunglasses of Rick Stevens, the hero of Tail of the Dragon because like the car he drives, he needs armor to help him achieve his objective.
I included Gargoyles into the story of Tail of the Dragon because for over 20 years they are the only sunglasses that I have worn, and that will never change as long as I can buy Gargoyles. I am so passionate about Gargoyle sunglasses that once in Cancun, Mexico I had lost a screw to a pair of Gargoyles that were 10 years old and I had to face the intense sun of the Yucatan without protection. I went to a sunglass specialty shop looking for Gargoyle sunglasses so I could purchase a new pair. Much to my disappointment the store only carried Oakley sunglasses and Ray Ban, along with other similar brands—but not Gargoyles. The owner of the store almost sold me a pair Oakley’s that were very close in style to my Gargoyles. The cost of those Oakley’s down in Mexico was nearly $500 American dollars. As I put them on and looked at myself in the mirror, I felt like I was cheating on my Gargoyles, so I handed them back to the owner, and told him I’d buy more Gargoyles when I got back to the states. He seemed to admire my loyalty to Gargoyle sunglasses and swore that he would carry them from now on. He offered me a small jeweler’s screw with the correct threads to put in my old pair of Gargoyles for no charge and I was able to walk out of his store with my old sunglasses fixed.
I much preferred to face the intense sun of the Caribbean with my 10 year old Gargoyle sunglasses over a $500 pair of new Oakley sunglasses that looked very sharp, but just did not feel like Gargoyles. Gargoyles had been a part of my daily life for over 20 years. I can count on one hand the days I left my home without my Gargoyles. I am so passionate about my Gargoyle sunglasses that I put them on just to go outside to get the mail. I seldom ever let the sun hit my face without having Gargoyles on to shield my eyes with armor from the world outside.
I consider my eyes very valuable as I have 20/10 vision. I have always been very concerned in resisting the ultraviolent light thrown off by the sun and prefer filtered sun light through a good pair of sunglasses. I have done this since I was 9 or 10 years old. Gargoyles first came on the market in 1979. They were worn by Clint Eastwood in the movie Sudden Impact, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film Terminator. Dale Earnhart in NASCAR would make Gargoyle sunglasses part of his public image. I bought my first pair as I was working as a gunsmith in a shed I had set up behind my house and noticed that many of the shooters at the time were wearing Gargoyles to protect their eyes. I used my FFA license to qualify for a discount at wholesale dealer I had for gun parts who happened to sell Gargoyles. My discount made the $89 sunglasses at the time cost only $64. So I bought a pair for me, and a blue pair for my wife.
My love of Gargoyles has remained since that day in late 1989. However as the 1990’s came along and the old 80’s movie stars became older and less popular Oakley sunglasses began to take over as the most popular type of sunglasses. Oakley’s were the choice of the basketball player Michael Jordan so they became the next fashion craze in eyewear along with Air Jordan tennis shoes. Slowly over time, Gargoyles began to fade into obscurity as they had been carried by Sunglass Hutts all across the nation, but in the late 90’s those chain stores began fading as EBay and other online shopping outlets cut into the profits of those typical mall establishments. When Dale Earnhart had a crash that would cause his death, ambition for Gargoyles sunglasses seemed to disappear from the public completely.
I could no longer find Gargoyle sunglasses at a store, so I wore the same pair for over 10 years and never contemplated buying another pair even if I had to go for the rest of my life. Then we had the accident in Cancun where I had discovered that I had lost a screw to my sunglasses while climbing around in a cenote in the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula. Even though I had managed to fix my Gargoyles, it had become apparent that I would have to find a replacement pair eventually.
Once we returned to the states several more months went by and I intended to look for new Gargoyles but didn’t get around to it. Then about 7 months later for my birthday my wife gave me a present that was kind of small in relation to how excited she was about it. I opened the present and it was a new pair of Gargoyle Sunglasses she had found online at the new website for Gargoyles as seen here:
I was of course elated to have a brand new pair of Gargoyles for the first time in a decade. I remembered all the times my other pairs of sunglasses had helped me avert disaster, particularly on my motorcycle where gravel would fly up from a truck in front of me on the highway and send projectiles at my face. On one instance I was hit in the face with many small pebbles from a cement truck as I was flying by the vehicle at over 100 MPH. The small rocks dug into my skin and caused blood to run down my face from many places, particularly my forehead. But my Gargoyles protected my eyes allowing me to squint through the pain while I recovered without crashing.
My loyalty to Gargoyle sunglasses is alive and well today, so for the character of Rick Stevens in a story that requires the character to endure billions of dollars of damage from bullets, missiles, broken glass, splintered wood and intense wind gusts, the only eyewear I would even consider are Gargoyle sunglasses. It is for that very reason that Gargoyles are the sunglasses used in my new book Tail of the Dragon. Because when the whole world seems to be coming down, and only speed can save you, it is Gargoyles that I would turn to time and time again to protect my eyes so they can survive to fight another day with the ultimate in eye armor. There is no substitute for a character who is the first breed of a new kind of superman, and such heroes deserve to have their eyes protected as the world throws danger in large doses at the most vulnerable spot on the human body—their eyes. When it comes to sunglasses “function first” is always the first consideration and when it comes to function, none function better than Gargoyles.
I would have loved to hear from the Bill Cunningham speaking with Wayne Allyn Root on the day after the historic Wisconsin recall election of Governor Scott Walker, as opposed to the same Bill Cunningham who campaigned against Issue 2 in Ohio working against his friend, Governor Kasich who faced a similar battle in Ohio. The good Bill Cunningham had a wonderful conversation with Root on 700 WLW relishing the first major victory against the mobs of public sector unions and the tyranny those groups have inflicted upon America, as Walker emerged victorious with a 53-47 victory.
The big difference between the Scott Walker situation in Wisconsin and the John Kasich situation in Ohio is that Kasich had a law to defend, Walker had to defend himself. The unions targeted the Republican reforms on collective-bargaining in Ohio by seeking to repeal the entire law. The unions spent millions of dollars and collected more than enough signatures to attack the collective bargaining reform law to keep it out of their lives. The cost has been just as predicted, many schools, police, and fire departments have had to layoff workers to meet their budgets, because Issue 2 was repealed in Ohio during the November 2011 election. The unions were fighting on two fronts, as they also had to spend their national time and money fighting in Wisconsin gathering signatures to recall the governorship of Scott Walker removing him from office entirely, just because the unions didn’t like him.
The audacity of this attempt says everything about what union politics represents. Their attempt to remove a sitting governor not for corruption, or unethical violations against the state constitution, but for reforming collective-bargaining and being too aggressive for their liking was the primary motive. The public unions tried to do against Scott Walker what they have done to every governing body for more than 80 years, and that is impose their collective will upon politics to shape legislation to their liking. But Walker stood strong during the entire attempt to remove him from office, and the Republican Party stood with him firmly, which led to the first major victory against the union mob in union history.
Kasich was not so lucky. Republicans did not stand behind Governor Kasich the way they did with Scott Walker because too many Republicans had climbed into bed with the unions over the years, and could not pick a side in the modern civil war going on between public and private sector jobs. When Issue 2 was defeated, it was a sign that the labor unions advocating open communism could not be beat, so the situation looked grim for Scott Walker.
When Bill Cunningham was growing up, unions seemed to be an unstoppable force. My own dad is about the same age as Cunningham and told me before the first time I went on WLW to speak with Scott Sloan about the tyranny of the teachers unions, “The unions will get you. You have to watch what you say.” My dad, like Cunningham saw firsthand all through the 60’s and 70’s how labor unions driven by communist leaders would destroy the lives of people who stood in their way. To speak out against the unions meant conflict, and many people wish to avoid conflict, so they yielded to the unions for many years which resulted in disproportionate budgets favoring the public unions. Politicians seeking to hide their part in the scam promoted tax increases to hide their fear of the unions.
All public unions function in virtually the same way. Whenever a union president faced a city council, township trustees, or a school board, the standard behavior is to use their union members to protest ANY wage reductions, or insurance premium increases with radical displays and public threats. Most recently, it was Diana Fray who just received 51 months in prison for her theft of a quarter million dollars from her union to take vacations and purchase real estate. She went from being a crusader for the collective mob of her union to a criminal within only weeks of being discovered for her crimes. The only thing that changed was a slight shift in public acceptance. Labor union presidents steal money all the time from their employers with the threat of force. They do not earn pay increases based on merit, but upon coercion. This is how unions have managed to extort so much money from the companies they work for, and from the tax payers, is through threats and intimidation. The only difference for Diana Fray is she didn’t just steal the money from the tax payers, but from her own union too, which in a world of twisted reality, finally crossed the line.
The unions threatened Scott Walker with even death during his first year and a half of office, attempting every trick of thug manipulation used since unions began. They chanted, they attempted violence, the issued death threats, they attempted public humiliation and finally they attempted to use the force of law to batter Walker out of office.
But what Walker has been the first to do on a large-scale is to show the formula for beating these collectivists which every state and local government can now see for their own eyes, and that is to show that the power of the individual is more powerful than the collective mob if the individual simply does not care what the mob thinks, feels, or considers. Walker like Kasich was hired to do a job through an election and if people didn’t like the results of that job, they can vote him out in the next election. Kasich had his efforts cut out from under him as a result of the union referendum. Many voters simply did not vote in favor of keeping Issue 2 because they lacked the courage to show up at the polls, which yielded Ohio to the power of collective force represented by the unions. The unions attempted to remove Walker from office because they wanted to stop the reforms he initiated, and did not allow him to run his full term because they knew that Walker’s reforms would solve many budget problems. They knew if people saw this secret for themselves, they would no longer support public labor unions. So the unions attempted to do what they know best and that’s force a man from office because he went against their wishes.
Scott Walker showed as Hank Rearden did in the book Atlas Shrugged, that the coercion of the labor unions, like the coercion of the law, did not have any real power that they did not steal from someone else. The unions do not have better ideas, they are not the best employees, they are not the most efficient–they fail in every conceivable way. They only succeed when they can force others to act against themselves by coercion. Scott Walker did not yield, and because of it, the unions have been exposed for not having any legitimate power or claim to greater portions of the public treasury. All the unions have is the threat of force, of being a potential menace to those who are in love with peace. This has been a profitable formula against conservatives who would rather make money than fight, and would rather appease than argue. In the mind of the conservative, they can always make more money, so they give away their treasures hoping the looting mobs of the public unions will leave them alone, but it only made the situation worse. Each time the mob came, they asked for more and more money until the public had simply had enough.
Now that it has been seen, this resistance to the mob rule of the labor unions will begin to escalate, and organized labor will continue to fail in pockets all over the country, and it should. Taken as individuals, the union members are just the same as the rest of society. They are not evil incarnate. But in the collective body of a public sector union, the mob becomes the most evil entity on the face of the earth. They exist only to rob, and pillage anyone they can so they can secure wonderful communist lifestyles for themselves exhibited so well by Wayne Allyn Root in the broadcast above. The life of the union member requires the looting of others to survive, which is why they are one of the most corrosive forces in politics today. Finally, people are starting to stand up to them, and have realized that the greatest power there is in the entire world that is more powerful than any gun, any protest, any public display against the mob is to simply learn to say “NO.” Saying “no” takes away the power of the union and everything they represent. It stops the ability of the collectivist parasites from further extracting from the taxpayers any more money without revealing that they are actually functioning as a gang of thugs with one purpose, to loot and destroy everything until there is nothing left—and thus fulfill the life of a treacherous parasite.
Yes, it has been a good week, Scott Walker will remain governor of Wisconsin, and Diana Fray will go to jail for several years to live with the other criminals of existence, which is where she and every union member deserves to go who attempts to live off the work of others without a care to the lives they destroy in the process. The only sadness I have is that Ohio had a chance to be the first, but in the final hour, they blinked and the unions prolonged the inevitable for just a few more months until Walker finally beat them. Most of the time the only difference between victory and loss is in the courage of other individuals to rally to the cause of courage. In Wisconsin, there was courage—but in Ohio, there was not—and because of that, many people will lose their jobs in the long run and the misery will be extended because people did not have the guts to make the right call at the right time and instead played politics at the expense of honor.
Listen to this teacher from Wisconsin in the clip below right before the recall election of Governor Scott Walker. It is these kinds of public employees that have driven up the cost of education at every school in the United States and is what they more often than not seek to teach our youth.
It is those kinds of employees who have created a situation in my home school district of Lakota that are devastating for the parents sending their children to the school. At Lakota over $160 million dollars of tax payer money is already allocated toward educating the students of the community, however, according to the teachers union, that’s not enough. The average wage per employee at Lakota is $63K per year and makes up approximately 80% of the total budget. Yet the Lakota School Board along with superintendent Mantia has said that they don’t have enough money, so they seek to twist the arm of the tax payers in a hope to pass a school levy. They do so at Lakota by cutting busing for students, and have been charging to participate in sports programs. This has enraged many in the community who expect participation in sports to be part of the public education experience. The fees at Lakota during the school year of 2012 will be the highest in the State of Ohio at $550 per student per sport with no cap for families. You can read in more detail the article from the Cincinnati Enquirer about this issue in case you missed it.
I have spoke with many parents in Lakota, many of them upset that the cost of passing a school levy for them individually is far less than paying $550 per sport for their child. If the parents have 2 children in school and each of them play two sports, that particular family is out over $2000 a year, so they have said to me that they will vote in favor of a school levy so they can save money, even though they don’t agree with the politics.
I have told these parents that the system is rigged this way by the OSBA to push school boards like the one at Lakota to place the financial pain back on the parents so that union contracts can be satisfied without interruption. I told them that if they allow themselves to vote yes for a school levy because they want to save the $2000 in fees, then they are simply tools of organized labor.
The cause of the school fees is not lack of money; it is mismanagement of the money given to the districts by the tax payers. Cutting sports is proportional to the cuts of busing in that sports costs are somewhere between 1% and 2% of the total budget. When a school board cuts their support of funding sports, they do so in order to cover the expense of heavily padded labor contracts, and they hope the imposition on parents will force tax increases on the community to cover the labor demands.
In Southwest Ohio 82 percent of the 49 school districts are charging pay-to-play fees for high school sports yet just across the river in Kentucky such fees are rare. The strategy is designed by the Ohio School Board Association to extort money through financial hardship to force tax increases. In Kentucky union membership is not required, but in Ohio it is. Public schools in Ohio are a closed shop, and this forces labor costs up through collective bargaining who seeks to gobble up all the tax dollars for their union interests. This leaves no money left for sports, leaving children struggling to pay for their fees. It’s a dirty trick organized by teacher unions to manipulate taxpayers, and it’s rather disgusting.
The public sector unions at their heart are socialist organizations intent on open communism. That is why so many of the radical teachers who advocate leftist policies are drawn to big labor public sector jobs, because it keeps them out of competitive work environments which is the only place that communism works– in theory—in the minds of the extreme liberal, in their utmost fantasies. Communism in real life does not work, and it never works—and that is what the cause of the sports fees are. Parents are forced to accept small bits of communism from radical teachers because they don’t want to pay the extraordinary fees to play sports. The extortion tactic forces upon the family trying to give their children the best of everything, higher taxes that go on forever, so to avoid the school fees they must accept the taxes. It’s a dishonest practice that should be viewed with the same anger that the theft by a common criminal is viewed, because the intentions are the same—theft, extortion, and coercion through financial torture. What else is it?
Personally, I do not want to pay for teachers who think the way that educators shown in the video above think. I would seek to terminate their employment from my district because they are just creating trouble for our nation to solve later with incorrectly educated students. Many political looters speak of the need for education, but they always leave out the most important part of education, and that is getting a “quality” education. A district that does not manage the extraordinary taxes that the Lakota district already pays is yielding to the radicals of the unions at the expense of parents and children. School boards are not in pursuit of quality, but simply a lottery ticket of hope that if the district pays for a teacher that they are going to get the desired results. Most often, they do not. All too often the money buys a left-winged radical intent on bringing communism to the minds of our children and teaching them failed economic policies, and that is not acceptable.
The proper reaction to the extortion measure of school fees is to force the district to pay the money where the district desires it. If the voters wish for their money to be spent on busing, then the school board should do that. If the desire of voters is to have their money spent on sports, then the school board has an obligation to do so. But what has happened at Lakota, and 82% of all schools in Southern Ohio is they take direction from the OSBA to protect the labor contracts of teachers with gold plated benefits that the tax payers do not enjoy themselves, and that is why the children and their families are made to suffer. There is no other reason, and the public reaction to these extortion methods are the task of our day to define for generations to come. Appeasement today only leads to tyranny tomorrow, and for the parents who would rather pay the tax than the fee, that is exactly what they are choosing, which their children are watching—and learning.
The solution is not to yield and allow the mismanagement to occur, because it does not solve the problem. Letting it go, only delays the problem for some future time for a future family, which is how we arrived at this situation in the first place.
This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon
The Overmanwarrior 