Category: Arizona

THE NOTHING

For years now I have wondered if Glenn Beck was getting his show topics based on my articles here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom.  What he speaks about and what I write about seemed to parallel closely over a long period of time.  I know I don’t have time to watch and listen to Glenn Beck in much detail.  My exposure to Beck is usually what people send to me in the form of clips through email.  On Beck’s end, given his success over the last 5 years, I’m sure he has the same problem that I do only 100 times worse, so I doubt he has time to read my articles—unless somebody he trusts sends them to him.  But it is beyond coincidence that he has arrived at just about the same place that I have in regard to public education at virtually the same time.  The only rational explanation is that people like Glenn Beck, Judge Napolitano, John Stossel and of course myself have arrived at the same independent conclusions based on our observations of public education because logic has delivered us to truth’s door.  The conclusion of those observations that is difficult for many to hear is that if you love your child, you should take them far away from public education.  If you love your country, you should take your children out of public education.  If you love humanity, you should take your children out of public education.  In short, public education is a terribly corrosive social element that is destroying everything we are as human beings toward an aim that is beyond human comprehension.  Watch Glenn Beck state the same things I have been saying for quite a long time now:

When I first worked with No Lakota Levy to reform the cost impact of our local government school I didn’t feel so strongly until I learned how mindless the collectivism in public education truly was.  But a few years into the levy fighting efforts and three elections later which were ignored by the administrators, I began to realize that Glenn Beck’s statements above were true, and a sad realization.  It was actually hard for me to accept and I have never been a fan of public education or collective endeavors of any kind.  Even in my own school days when many of the coaches wanted me to be on their track and football teams I was always hesitant because of the collective nature of the “team” concept.  Even as a young man I never yielded my individuality to a collective endeavor—so with that position in mind it was hard for me to realize that public education needed to be scrapped in America in favor of a system that is independently competitive, and innovative.  Anything attached to government control needs to be rejected and since The Department of Education was created at the federal level in 1979, public education has quickly degraded into a propaganda arm of progressive causes.  But why is this so?

The best explanation for the degradation tendency of public education and collectivism in general cannot be found in the rally cry toward socialism or communism that comes from the political leanings of progressives—it’s a far deeper philosophical problem than those types of ideologies.  To date, the best explanation behind the type of evil that is in the wake of public education was best defined in the fantasy film The Never Ending Story which came out in the 1980s just a few years after the creation of the DOE.  The Never Ending Story is a fantasy about a young hero who must slay a fathomless enemy called The Nothing and the pursuit of the hero’s journey for the main character is to learn that it is imagination that destroys The Nothing.  The way to destroy the evil that is destroying the world is to recharge the world with imagination—(thought).

Childhood mythologies often contain within them the stories of morality that all of society needs to keep order to their own value system.  As anyone who reads me often understands, mythology is the most important ingredient that a society produces which is why I so openly support the Star Wars franchise, because the product of Lucasfilm is in the manufacturing of values society is hungry for.  The reason that fantasy is so popular culturally in movies and books is because humankind seeks to counter the effects of the mythical “Nothing” which imposes itself on their lives—as defined in The Never Ending Story.  WATCH THE BELOW CLIP to learn more about The Nothing.

When I was in the fourth grade my class went on a field trip to see the Cincinnati Pops at Music Hall play a symphonic rendition of John Williams’s music for Star Wars.  Hanging behind the orchestra was a giant projection screen which displayed slides of the movie characters during the performance and the entire building rumbled with cheers as each slide arrived in procession celebrating the movie that had taken America by storm in 1977.  Star Wars to all my young classmates from schools all over Cincinnati were being enchanted with the values of the music and the film behind the characters that contained limitless imagination and boundless energy.  I thought the experience was a wonderful one.  But later, when we returned back to the school on a silent school bus and were back in the seats of our classroom our teacher unleashed a fury of anger at how inconsiderate we were for cheering on the heroes of Star Wars and ignoring the efforts of the members of the symphony.  Even as a young fellow in the fourth grade I shook my head at the obvious ignorance of the teacher. I knew that the teacher represented The Nothing well before The Never Ending Story so accurately placed a name on the type of evil she was spewing.  Her values taught to her as an educator pursing the field of instruction through years of college thought the symphony was more valuable than the characters the music reflected—her values came from The Nothing.  She valued the collective symphony as the source of goodness behind Star Wars instead of the individual characters who were the real heroes of the afternoon.  The music only supported the plight of the heroes.  She misidentified the value system of the entire event.

Years later when I first saw The Never Ending Story I had an awwh haaa moment while watching it, and it hit me most when I was first married and had a young child of my own sitting on my lap looking for family friendly programming to show my daughter.  When the wolf explained what The Nothing was, I immediately thought of the political world in the wake of the Reagan Presidency, my personal experiences with public education, the relationship between public sector jobs and private sector and all the drama of local politics.  The situation in America was not quite as bad as it is now so the impact of The Nothing was not yet in place so obviously.  I could see The Nothing even then as clearly as can be expected for something that doesn’t exists–because even a blank space is “something.”  The Nothing can only be seen for what it destroys, not for any mass it holds.  It can only be measured by what is missing from one moment to the next.

Now, in 2013 many years after the release of The Never Ending Story following 4 years of George Bush senior, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Bush Jr., and now 5 years of Barack Obama as Presidents of The United States, it is easy to see that The Nothing is moving easily through the world and it uses people like the wolf did in The Never Ending Story to carry the message of The Nothing.  The Nothing seeks to destroy thinking.  It is what Ayn Rand calls “evasion” in the philosophy of Objectivism.  In mythologies like Star Wars it is called The Dark Side of the Force. But in The Never Ending Story, it is most accurately described as “The Nothing.”

The products of The Nothing are all forms of collectivism which seek to strip away individual thought and action on behalf of a greater good.  The greater good is never on behalf of individual freedom, it is always in service of The Nothing—the evil behind the evil that some cultures call The Devil, Sith Lords, demons, or any face of sinister display. The attempt to articulate such collectivism with a face only names the crime—but does not define the origin of the crime, or the tendency to succumb to it.  In public education young people are stripped away of their minds and are vehicles for The Nothing which has slowly destroyed the entire world right in front of our faces.  No one person controls The Nothing.  But individual people dance to its strings just as the wolf did in The Never Ending Story.  In that context it could be said that The Nothing is behind government seeking to increase taxes forcing parents to have two incomes to accomplish what one used to—to strip mothers away from their children leaving kids open and vulnerable to The Nothing of public education.  It is The Nothing that moves the mouth of Barack Obama seeking to place every child in America during age four into pre-school so that a mind numb teacher can begin to teach young people to turn off their thoughts, and imaginations in dedication to The Nothing.  The Nothing is often difficult to see.  But in public education, it is evident for those with eyes that are open and willing to take notice.  Public schools—government schools–are dedicated to The Nothing like a religion.  To see The Nothing speak to people and learn what is NOT there.  That is how you know The Nothing is at work.

It is The Nothing that Pink Floyd sang about in their Wall album.  Many pot smoking patrons declared that the movie The Wall could only be understood when they were “high,” (mentally impaired, intoxicated—or otherwise inebriated) which has been the running dialogue among young people for the last 30 years.  But for me, as a young man of 16, 17, and 18 years old who didn’t do drugs of any kind, I understood The Wall on my first viewing, and knew the protagonist was fighting against The Nothing ultimately.  Pot smokers could only begin to wrap their minds around freedom from The Nothing when they were “stoned” and had turned off the rules of society.  This is why people do drugs and get drunk, so they can have momentary release from the grip of The Nothing.  But when the intoxication wears off, The Nothing has them again, and the poor souls become mindless dogs lobbying for more school levies, advocating more socialism under President Obama, and seeking to expand government so that it destroys each and every individual on planet Earth.

I know that many reading this will wonder how I can connect all these dots, and may even question whether or not I am even sane—because relative to their social position, these are outlandish claims.  For many people fantasies like The Never Ending Story or Star Wars are just entertainment and the lessons of mythology contained within those stories are dead to them.  Those are the kinds of people who are the wolves in our society who help The Nothing destroy the world without knowing it.  Like the teacher from the fourth grade who represented The Nothing yelling at our class her embarrassment of students clapping and cheering the images on a slide show instead of the live collective symphony of the Cincinnati Pops, The Nothing destroys by ripping away the source of goodness through deferment.  The teacher played her role in destroying the imagination of her students year by year until the kids were less mentally than what they were when they first entered kindergarten.  Teachers like that fourth grade instructor plant the seeds of The Nothing so that the adult of 50 years of age has less of a mind than the 3-year-old, because The Nothing lives in their minds and eats their thoughts.  It doesn’t mean the 50-year-old does not have statistical knowledge.  But the ability to think independently has been destroyed in such individuals—and that is the result of The Nothing.

When Glenn Beck says to take children out of public schools he is saying the same thing that I have been saying and for the same reasons.  However, it is not just collectivism that is the ultimate threat, but it is The Nothing that is behind the collectivism that we must fight against.  The way to beat The Nothing is with thought and independent values produced by a mind free of collectivism.  That was the lesson of The Never Ending Story which never does end.  We are living the story today as we have in the past and will in the future.  It never goes away; The Nothing will always seek to destroy mankind with the obscure allure of collectivism.  It takes an imagination to see the truth and understand the shape of The Nothing.  It also takes an imagination to apply thought and mythology to the legal world of the functioning adult which is what I spend a lot of time doing here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom.  Just because it is difficult for many to grapple with, does not mean the evil does not exist.  To stop that evil, every parent who claims to truly love their child should pull their children from public schools as soon as possible and find an alternative.  If parents do not do this, they will subject their children to a doomed life in service of The Nothing, which already holds the hearts and minds of 99.999999999999999999999% of the adult population.  Only a few—like Glenn Beck has managed to escape and report what is obvious to those not consumed by The Nothing—that public education is the vehicle that is used to destroy our children—and the problem is far bigger than most people are willing to accept.  But The Nothing still is there hunting us all for its collective consumption in a quest that will last all eternity if left unchecked.

It is because of what I have learned about public education that my feelings have evolved over time to seek answers for these modern problems in the myths that have built our society.  The logic of political life does not contain the answers—yet the childhood stories of our past contains the wisdom needed to understand the obscure problem of our present—why our children are growing ignorant over time instead of more intelligent and why our adults walk around like mindless zombies full of arrogance due to their years of exposure to The Nothing.  At golf courses they add up their scores over a day time beverage and whisk their children to and fro soccer practice thinking they are parents of the year—only to discover too late that they have delivered their children to the gates of doom.  The trivia of the adult, and school levy supporter who blindly believes that public education is the savior of society, are simply agents of The Nothing who reside behind all forms of collectivism and is instructed to our world population through public education universally committed to the kind of evil that only occupied the minds of childhood nightmares when the purity of youth could still tell the difference.

For the facts to sustain the assertions above click the link below:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/cscope-exposing-the-nations-most-controversial-public-school-curriculum-system/

That is how bad the system is.  If you have a child in public school, they are being trained by those methods.  Every child in a school district is being exposed to these things, and it is our tax money from property values that pay for it.

Rich Hoffman

“If they attack first………..blast em’!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ an unexpected TRIUMPH

I have been writing about The Hobbit movie and its December release for over a year now and I have been very excited for its long-awaited arrival in theaters.  My wife and I took my large family and some of their friends to see it during a prime time showing over the weekend, and before I get into any kind of review I need to provide some context.  Our society is changing rapidly, and not all of it is bad.  When religion was very strong in our society, it taught young and old alike about the nature of good and evil—which I spend a lot of time writing and thinking about.  But in 2012 in a quest that really started in 1977 with the first Star Wars film, it is clear that mythological values in our society has moved from books into many other visual formats that explore more deeply than ever the nature of evil, and the necessity of good.  I did not expect The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey to be over-the-top excellent.  I just expected it to be good and an enjoyable tribute to stories I have loved my entire lifetime.  As stated in previous articles here at the OW I have allowed myself to enjoy on many nights the words of J.R.R. Tokens’ many works by candlelight, or on a backyard porch under swift moving nighttime clouds next to a lantern.  So I have a passion already present for the material offered in The Hobbit.  Aside from that, I also followed closely the development of the film through the legal hurdles it had to pass in order to arrive in theaters under Peter Jackson’s direction, which for a long time I never thought would happen—because of the stunning success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy a decade ago.  So it was with some pent-up reverence that I took my family to the movies on December 15, 2012 and let me declare that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an unexpected delight.  The Hobbit as a film is jaw-dropping great and filled to the absolute brim with passion, rich storytelling, and a fully flushed out journey into Middle-Earth that will change the lives of many people who see it for the better.  It is a stunningly fantastic movie—a cut from the tapestry of cinema that will set new heights of expectation from audiences permanently.  I did not think it was possible to make a movie version of The Hobbit that exceeded, or even matched the effort of Lord of the Rings—but Peter Jackson has been successful in that daunting task and then some.

The Hobbit is essentially a treasure hunt that is triggered when a dragon pushes a society of dwarves from their home in the Lonely Mountain.  Bilbo Baggins is recruited as a burglar/thief to penetrate the mountain and help remove the terrible dragon Smoug who is now residing there bathing his massive body in mountains of gold stolen from the dwarves.  I will admit that reviewers did discourage me a bit when they reported that Warner Brothers had pushed Jackson into stretching the 300-page book of The Hobbit which is a kid’s book into three—three hour films, and that the first half of An Unexpected Journey was boring.  For such reviewers, I can only say that they have become spoiled brats, and the action of The Hobbit was very intense at the end making the rather story driven beginning seem like a very different movie.  But the beauty is that Jackson was able to make The Hobbit into a better story then the actual book was—which is almost never the case—without violating the literary material of Tolkien at all.    Only under Peter Jackson’s direction could this have been done with such a close association with Lord of the Rings as The Hobbit takes place 60 years before the Rings films.  The beginning is only boring compared to a very intense ending—more intense than any movie I can remember seeing—and I’ve seen most of them.

For me personally, I found the deep secrets and constant references to an evil that is slowly seething up into Middle-Earth to be fascinating in reference to the events of Lord of the Rings.  The Hobbit takes the time to show how the seeds of evil are actually planted and how slowly over time they can emerge right under the noses of some of the wisest minds.  In The Hobbit it is the wizard Gandalf who looks like a crazed fool in comparison to his mentor Sauruman the White Wizard, Elrond the Lord of Rivendell, and Galadriel co-ruler of Lothlórien.  Gandalf in a scene that was one of my favorites attempts to tell these leaders of Middle-Earth of his devious plot to rid the Lonely Mountain of the dragon, but also to combat a seething evil that is emerging slowly in the cracks of society.  It was my favorite scene in the film because I feel a lot like Gandalf in real life uttering the same kinds of warnings, schemes and mechanisms that I have involved myself in only to have a White Wizard type politician declare—“show me the proof of these allegations.”  Evil does not grow within the honesty of critical assessment, and nobody but Gandalf and Galadriel can even remotely see it.  Of course, we know that Gandalf was right and that 60 years later that evil will have arrived fully in Middle-Earth in the events of Lord of the Rings.  In An Unexpected Journey Gandalf sees the evil before everyone else, and must face that realization alone—which is realistically, often the case.

In many ways Peter Jackson has done with The Hobbit what George Lucas did with the prequels of Star Wars and that is to pull back wide on Middle-Earth to tell of the events that led up to the Academy Award winning movies that were previously done.  But Jackson has not violated the original Tolkien material to perform the task, he’s only added to it with previously unrelated Tolkien material about Middle-Earth which led to controversy with some critics.  Usually in novel translations things get left out of a movie version of a great book.  It is not often—if ever that things that were not specifically in the source novel find their way into the film version without deviating away from the source, but following it sincerely.  This is what Jackson has done, and he did an absolutely marvelous job of it.  Literally breath-taking in just how spectacular of a job he did—if viewers thought that Middle-Earth had been adequately flushed out in the Lord of the Rings films, The Hobbit will prove that there is much more to explore, and it is an exciting adventure all its own.

I am an old fan of these types of stories, and it is hard to impress me.  But—The Hobbit impressed me in every category, music, visual effects, character development, mythological significance, plot validation; The Hobbit is successful in every single category of filmmaking splendor.  And the characters go through one cliffhanger after another in some of the most astonishing conflicts that have ever taken place between characters on a movie screen.  There is nothing like The Hobbit that has ever been done in any film to date.  Many of the sequences step up and over Lord of the Rings in sheer brutality, and cinematic effectiveness.  If the Academy Awards snub this film because of internal Hollywood politics, it will be a shame—because The Unexpected Journey deserves the same kind of respect that Return of the King garnered.  This first Hobbit film is simply that good.

I could write on about this movie for thousands of pages, and still not get out everything I want to say—so do yourself a favor and go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and enjoy the adventure of a lifetime.   As Gandalf tells Bilbo in the film, “if you take this adventure you will never be the same again”—so to, will audience members never be quiet the same after seeing the first movie of a three-part Hobbit series.  I am riveted now waiting for the second addition to this excellent film series titled The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug which will be entirely about the slaying of the terrible dragon that is guarding the gold in the Lonely Mountain.  In the meantime, I think my wife and I will go see The Unexpected Journey about 19,000 more times.  Enjoy! 

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

Doc Thompson Fights for Detroit: Michigan becomes a Right-to-Work State

The biggest mistake that all organized labor advocates make is that they believe collective bargaining is a viable device for gaining wages, which it is not. From the employer’s point of view, wages are the way employers can motivate the best and brightest of their work force to excel, which ultimately sifts the bad workers from the good, the lazy from the ambitious.  In the game of football and other sports, there is a tryout process, and players that excel because of their skill and ambition are the ones who often end up making the most money.  Collective bargaining destroys this entire discovery endeavor.  It imposes upon the revenue generating entity an equal distribution of wages that all the employees do not deserve, because not all employees perform equally.  It is this very economic misconception that has destroyed the economy of Detroit, and is why the city is considering Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection after years of gradual decline.  The city was built by the car industry, and the unions killed the car making business in Detroit.  To understand why, just read Atlas Shrugged written in 1957 for the long answer.  Here is a USA Today article on the issue.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/10/march-toward-bankruptcy-detroit/1758305/

It was good to see my old friend Doc Thompson who is now doing radio in Detroit acting as he did when he was in Cincinnati and that is pointing out where the discrepancy is in perception between public sector unions and economic reality.  As Michigan has looked at Detroit and learned some hard lessons, they have come to realize that the best way to bring business back to the state is by passing right-to-work legislation as Indiana has, and Wisconsin.  As predicted the unions have taken to the streets in an all out assault to defend their legal rights to loot and pillage from the American tax payer.  Doc had some wonderful appearances on the Kudlow Report on CNBC talking about this very volatile issue.

 

When Doc was in Cincinnati as a radio personality he hosted a debate between factions involving Ohio’s Senate Bill 5 which was in essence an attempt to make public unions a right-to-work option, which of course the unions attacked heavily out of fear that if employees had the freedom to join a union without coercion, that most employees would elect to not pay the union dues—which is all the unions really care about.  The money they make off union dues gives them lobby power over politics.  Doc handled the radical crowd fairly.  CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW.  I was a much bigger supporter of Senate Bill 5 than Doc was at the time because I saw it as a chance to take control of our local government politics away from public sector unions—which was essential to keeping taxes minimized.  But now that Doc is in Detroit, he can see clearly what the unions have done to that once great city, and he has stepped up to the front line to fight the parasite that the unions have made of themselves at the expense of South Michigan’s entire economy.

The villain of Detroit is the labor unions that are rooted in communism that is forced upon employers with “collective bargaining.”  Labor unions controlling management that are in the business of making goods like cars, cans of beer, and paper find that through “collective bargaining” the cost matrix of operating a business pushes up their labor costs way too much for a business to properly function, so the business locates to a state, or a country where they can control their labor costs.  Labor union’s answer to this trend is to spread communism to every corner of the world so that businesses have nowhere to go and thus no option but to pay employees through “collective bargaining” extraordinarily high wages that most of them do not deserve.  This is why public schools are failing, because bad teachers and good teachers all make the same amount of money no matter what they do, so failure is incentivized.  Businesses, like sports and other entertainment have survived under high organized labor costs because the public has so far supported the extraordinary mark-ups in the product to subsidize the collective bargaining impact.  But even those industries are about 10 years away from total collapse of their profit profiles.  Movie actors are paid too much as ticket prices at the box office have capped out, which will lead to a recession in the movie business.  And sports franchises are hitting the same cap, the public can’t afford in general to spend more than $200 for a football game so the profit matrixes for the NFL are about to hit a brick wall as well.  But that brick wall hit Detroit many years ago as companies like Toyota, and Honda have made better cars cheaper than the union wages of Detroit, leading to a collapse of that industry.

Michigan will be a right-to-work state, and Ohio will follow shortly thereafter.  They will become freedom to work states because the economy demands these actions.  Anything else leads to direct socialism, which will choke off the economy and send too many American citizens to welfare programs to survive, which will collapse the GDP of our nation, so there isn’t a choice.  The only fools who haven’t received the memo are the union workers who want to believe that pixy dust will save their hides from their own stupidity—and the Keynesian economics that politicians like Barack Obama subscribe to, which is destroying the economy of Europe presently, will have to be abandoned.  These are facts that cannot be ignored, even though all politicians who cozy up to organized labor practices “evasion” in denying the facts of economic reality.

No economy can flourish if the potential for profit from the job creators is taken away, and labor unions take away from management the tools designed to produce wealth.  Once a company loses its ability to manage their costs, and can no longer raise their price to off-set the labor costs, they have no choice but to file bankruptcy, or move their business to a more business friendly environment.  However, in the case of Detroit, the entire city cannot just pick up and move, it will simply fail, and become part of a long list of once thriving areas that prospered economically for a time, then failed under their own stupidity.  Detroit will join cities such as the Native American city of Cahokia, the mysterious, Teotihuacan, or Ankor Wat all which found their previous flourishing economic periods erode away due to droughts, disease, poor crop yields, or just political corruption which had the city of Chichen Itza on decline before the Spanish ever set foot on the Yucatan Peninsula.  Detroit is failing because it cannot manufacture goods to export, and people are abandoning the city because there are no jobs, and those jobs where ran out-of-town because of labor unions.  The economic failure is unlike those other ancient cities.  Detroit is a victim of self-imposed greed, and lack of proper economic understanding.  I feel honored to know Doc Thompson personally and see that he is still fighting for what’s right, even when it might otherwise be unpopular, or socially unfashionable.  The fix to Detroit’s problems, or America’s are not to glaze over the obvious economic facts of organized labor failures, but to fix the problem before one of America’s once great cities becomes only a distant memory.  Right-to-work cannot come soon enough for the poor state of Michigan.

Read more at the link below:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/angry-union-protesters-shout-down-tea-partiers-in-michigan-and-state-rep-tweets-violent-threat/

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

IAFF Supports Obama and his Intellectual Superior Joe Biden: What Issue 7 in Mason is all about

If you pay tax money to a public worker, especially firefighters, you are sending some of your money to the socialist Obama and his intellectual superior, Joe Biden, because the communist oriented International Association of Firefighters Union supports those kinds of politicians. Union employees who get their lush salaries from tax payers often convert their money into political power that often works against the public who may resent having their money spent on politicians that do not reflect their politics. Look at the latest IAFF union ad against Mitt Romney then read below how much money these same employees make and what kind of political tricks they are using to secure those wages into the future. Then tell me that they are really concerned as they report in this video below that “they care about their neighbors.” What they really mean is that they are actually well paid mercenaries—there’s a big difference.

The trouble with public workers like teachers, firefighters and police are that we have allowed radicalism from the union ranks to prevent the management of those labor costs. It is now considered taboo to even discuss intelligently the financial value of these employees because they involve the safety and well-being of our youth and our elderly with protective services. However, some have challenged these notions and made political ground that is snow balling the other way. The great weakness of the labor union argument against public sector workers is the justification for their enormous salaries which have greatly outpaced private sector incomes by more than double in some cases. Now that voters realize this discrepancy the tide is changing. Levies have not passed for schools, and recently police and fire levies have began to fail—halting the insane progress of public sector wages skyrocketing without end.

Recognizing the public push-back against public sector workers, but still wishing to keep political peace with the unions, the City Council members of Mason, Ohio have proposed a ballot initiative called Issue 7 which creates a new method of funding for safety, fire, and EMS services. The great concern for these council members is that their fire department will be coming off a 5-year property tax that expires in 2013. The Mason School System is also considering a levy in 2013 leaving politicians very concerned that the tax increases will not be passed for both issues, because there is great risk that neither will be passed. Many political insiders are praying to the presidential gods that Mitt Romney will be elected so the economy will stabilize and voters will once again have extra money to throw at altruistic causes. Others in the unions hope that Obama will retain power and continue to loot from the rich so that he will give to the middle-class—the labor unions of the proletariat. But there is big trouble on the horizon in Mason that the City Council wishes to avoid with Issue 7.

Issue 7 is a potential tax on every property owner in Mason. The current effective millage rate for Mason is 4.4 mils under the current tax levy. A new levy, voted in at 5.0 Mils, gives council the right to charge the property owners of Mason a full 5.0 Mils – which would be a tax increase. But, they can shift that burden over to the non-property non-voting individuals of the Mason Community with an Income Tax levy, and reduce the property tax millage based on any difference – or they could max out both the new income tax and the property tax. Basically, should this pass, they can do either, or both – without your vote. Issue 7 is a permanent levy that allows council to get the money they need with a vote instead of having to go back to voters during contentious future elections that are on the horizon.

This is a problem because it does not address the outrageous wages that the public sector workers in the loosely defined safety professions charge for their services. The way that Issue 7 is written safety could mean anything from additional police services to raises for firefighters—which on the surface seems practical, even attractive, until the reality of the situation is examined. Firefighter wages in Mason from 2000 to 2009 (most recent comparatives) rose 29.20% – a more than 10% rise above inflation and more than 21% greater increase than Ohio Median Household Incomes. The Business Owners, Employees, and Property Owners footing the bill for these services, in many cases have lost jobs and/or have not seen a pay increase for years. The average working wage in Warren County in 2011 was $791 per week, or $41,132.00 per year (United Sates Dept. of Labor) – and that has slipped even farther recently: Median Income in Ohio hits 27-year lows – http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/09/14/median-income-in-ohio-hits-27-year-low.html

In Mason a fire department with an annual budget of close to $6 million dollars of which over 83% goes to wages and benefits, includes:

Fire Chief – Annual Compensation Package – $171,328.00
Deputy Fire Chiefs (5) – Annual Compensation Package- $114,000.00
Fire Lieutenants (6) – Annual Compensation Package – $103,000.00
Firefighter/Paramedic (22) Annual Compensation Package – $91,000.00
Assorted part-time and full-time positions at a cost of approx. $930,000

The trouble with Issue 7 is that it avoids dealing with the decision of continuing the practice of paying safety employees the kind of wages seen above, and deciding whether or not 5 Deputy Chiefs are even needed at a cost of over $500,000. Instead, Issue 7 allows city council to increase taxes to make the problem go away without having to go to the voters for a fire levy that competes with a school levy for voter approval. The wording of the Proposed Charter Amendment specifically states “for Safety, Fire, and EMS” – leaving an opening for spending under the “Safety” language that could mean anything. Again, an issue that could cause future problems should the governing bodies determine safety to mean stop signs, traffic signals, police needs, water & sewer, etc.

To learn more about all the reasons voters in Mason should vote against Issue 7 the website http://www.voteno7.com/ will do the job. But for those outside of Mason who are facing similar issues, it is important to watch closely the tricks of your public officials who are looking for a way out of the corner they have painted themselves in to. They have allowed for too many years unionized public workers to give themselves pay increases at the expense of tax payers not only for a fair wage, but an excessively wealthy wage that far outpaces reality. I have no doubt in my mind that there is a value of having teachers care for children all though I’d argue that they are teaching them the wrong things, and it is nice to have paramedics and police to help keep things socially in check. But they are not worth twice as much as the average employee who is paying their wages. Mason is a wealthy area to live and their average resident wage is $41,132.00. Deputy Fire Chiefs and Fire Lieutenants are not worth six figure incomes. It may be possible to have one or two of those positions filled but not 5 to 6 in a single community. These are the problems caused by collective bargaining agreements that inflate the wage levels of public workers to insane levels, and must be pulled back into reality, and such things will never happen if tax payers throw money at those positions without doing the hard act of managing the costs with a NO vote.

Dear reader, as you head to the voting booth on November 6th keep these things in mind. Voting to not take responsibility for the outrageous costs of public employees will not solve the problem and that is what proposals like Issue 7 try to do. They are attempting to sneak a tax increase under the door by taking away a contentious levy in the future by voting for giving the ability to city council today. And such a trick must not be allowed to be played on the taxpayers. And they will be played until voters stop allowing them to happen with across the board NO votes.

(Oh–and for those union workers who think they are flag waving patriots fighting for America learn your history.  If you are in a union, you support communism, (progressive politics) especially if it is attached to the AFL-CIO.  CLICK HERE for the history you didn’t know, and chose to ignore because your pay was so enticing.)

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

 

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‘Tail of the Dragon’ Interview on the Doc Thompson Show: Detroit is a “WAR ZONE.”

“Tail of the Dragon is a cross between Smokey and the Bandit, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” That’s what I told Doc Thompson during his 1270 AM radio show in Detroit during the interview that can be heard below at the link. Doc Thompson and I go back a few years, and have fought many school levy battles and public union campaign issues on the airwaves of radio. Doc had me on to discuss a new crisis that is going on in Detroit where the police presence is advocating its support of Proposal 2, which is a state constitutional change to guarantee collective bargaining rights for public employees. Ironically this is one of the major villains that have wrecked the economy of Detroit leaving the town a devastated “war zone.” My visit to the Doc Thompson Show came on the heels of a police union stunt headed by Joe Duncan who had 400 of his officers passing out fliers to fans of the Tigers first playoff game against the Oakland A’s, declaring the city unsafe for entry. Doc and I had seen this kind of behavior before with Senate Bill 5 in Ohio during 2011, and it just so happened that this kind plot line matched the story of my new book.

On the flier Joe Duncan and his officers declared “Enter Detroit at Your Own Risk,” as fans poured into Comerica Park. “Detroit is America’s most violent city and the city’s police force is grossly understaffed.” The intention of the fliers was the old fear game that all public unions use to advance their cause—which is not safety, but financial security. Unions on the backs of the unwitting participants such as Duncan and his officers are caught up in a plot to hatch communism in America designed long ago, and has been gradually accepted over a long period of time using fear tactics of terrorism to advance their agenda. The protesting police officers don’t care about the history of communism. They are working a dangerous job, and they simply want to get paid as much as they can for doing that job. From their perspective it’s only fair. But what they don’t understand, or have the historical background to decipher is the communist infiltration in America during the Red Decade of the 1930’s brought labor unions and collective bargaining ideas to the closest thing of pure capitalism ever known in the world and corrupted it with the taint of collectivism.

Proposition 2 in Michigan is attempting to go the opposite way as Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana who are all working to reform their public unions from extortive control over public services. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Michigan public unions are seeking to protect themselves from these changes by putting “collective bargaining” into the state constitution, which is why the police were at the Tiger’s playoff game looking for sympathy and votes for Proposition 2. They want to ensure that collective bargaining is in place for their entire careers, because it represents why they got into public service in the first place—because the money is great and the retirements come early and is profitable. But what they don’t know is that collective bargaining is the direct result of the Bolshevik Revolution started in Russia in 1917 and is a product of communism. Most likely the police passing out fliers at the baseball game have never heard of a Bolshevik let alone read the Ayn Rand classic about the start of communism in Petrograd from her novel We The Living. I would doubt they read a TV Guide let alone a 75-year-old novel that describes why the police are the modern-day pawns of the communism movement in America.

Detroit is not dangerous because of the amount of police there are. Detroit could hire a 1000 police and they still could not stop all the crime that is happening there. What is happening to Detroit is the same thing that has destroyed the Soviet Union and is currently destroying China. It’s the same thing that has wrecked the economies of Greece, Spain and is about to push France under—which is the influence of Socialist International as a political party advocating a world-wide push toward global communism. In the past Detroit had too many labor unions, so the business left to manufacture in regions where the labor is cheaper. Taxes are too high, there are too many public housing developments, there is simply too much government involvement. Detroit is a victim of socialism and the destructive experiments of communism coming out of the Red Decade. It is those policies of social engineering that had destroyed the Motor City which once boasted a thriving economy into the crime ridden battleground that it is today. It is those same policies that created collective bargaining and a gradual acceptance of communist thought in America hidden on the backs of trusted public sector workers like firefighters, cops and teachers. The blueprint for this Trojan horse of communism in America was outlined in the book We The Living published in 1936 and Detroit is the result of the communist attempt in America.

This was all predicted by Richard Cloward, which I discussed in my book Tail of the Dragon using the fictional Governor Wellington Royce to pontificate the frustrations that many progressives feel to this very day, which is people have unpredictably voted with their feet. Cloward wished to collapse capitalism in the 1960’s in favor of a communist insurrection by toppling the American economy that was overwhelmed with welfare demands. In Detroit, as in every major city in the United States with the exception of New York and Los Angeles, the people with money did as the producers in the book Atlas Shrugged did; they left and took their money with them when taxes became too high. When the money and businesses that made the money left Detroit because of the unions, both public and private, the high taxes, the government bureaucracies, it left Detroit with only the poor government dependents to pay into the tax base draining the city budgets, and crime has exploded as a result. These are hard concepts to discuss which is why I placed them into the context of a very intense story in my book Tail of the Dragon. Detroit is only the most obvious victim of these progressive policies that have masked the intentions of communist infiltration in America.

Detroit is in trouble today because they let themselves be seduced by the fear mongering of many public workers like Joe Duncan in the past, which used fear the same way that a terrorist does, to change social behavior. The crime is high in Detroit because the productive people who created jobs and made all the money in the city left, only to leave the weak to fend for themselves on government programs in perpetual need of more money from a tax base no longer present. Joe Duncan and his officers only want to get paid, because their union has made promises to them that they accepted as an American idea, even though collective bargaining was born in Petrograd, Russia at the start of the communist revolution that began in 1917. The result of such communist dreams is the condition of present day Detroit.

The best thing that Detroit could do for itself is to rid itself of public unions, collective bargaining, and lower tax rates so businesses might wish to return. Detroit needs to create economic stimulation so that the poor and jobless can have a job and become a part of the free enterprise system and force government to get out of the compassion business. Compassion cannot be created by government or enforced through force, and that is at the heart of collective bargaining. It is only good for the recipients of a government pay check. It is treacherous for those who have to actually pay the bill. With that said the worst thing Michigan could do in this upcoming election is vote in favor of Proposition 2. Voters in that “dangerous” city will have to take a hard-line in the sand and stick to it if they wish to save their city. No amount of tax money, police hires, or increases in government welfare can save them from the Cloward strategy that bankrupted their city for aims that are foreign to most Americans. The only way to save Detroit is by voting NO on all tax increases, and expansion of government services, especially those involving collective bargaining.

Rich Hoffman

Tail of the Dragon

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The Curse of the Modern Progressive: “Evasion” is what they all have in common

Evasion, as discussed previously here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom is the source of great evil in the world today. CLICK HERE FOR A REVIEW. For context it is important to take note of how evasion on the high-end of the political spectrum permeates virtually everything that occurs, and creates the tendency known today as political stalemates. It is also important to understand how evasion is being utilized on the low-end of the political spectrum as well so that the big picture and full impact of evasion in our modern age can be measured.

Barack Obama waited until September 5th before acknowledging publicly the film 2016: Obama’s America, which is a documentary that proves Obama’s mother was a communist advocate, that his child hood mentors including his grand parents were strong communist advocates, and that Obama has an anti-imperial view of America that explains his bizarre pursuit of world-wide collective salvation. Obama waited to address the negative portrayal of his life even though much of it appears to be true. He hoped that if he ignored the film, that it would just go away. The trouble is, 2016: Obama’s America is making money—a lot of money, and it’s not going away, so Obama lashed out at the film on his campaign website. CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT HE SAID. Obama learned to practice the progressive tendency toward evasion, which was given to his sensibilities from the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who picked pieces of the philosopher Plato and their belief in faith to explain the unexplainable. It was Kant who made so fashionable the liberal tendency to believe in things that cannot be reasoned through in reality. This also leads to the tendency to ignore the facts of reality when the mind has produced other images within its imagination.

Progressives like Obama have an idealized view of the world and think of themselves as heroes for the weak, and conquerors of the oppressors. They have in their minds a version of reality that does not exist in the real world. So when a documentary producer makes a film like 2016: Obama’s America the gross reality of what Obama really is, and what he is truly doing to the world is frightening, and beyond the measure of reality to such feeble minds as progressives tend to be. So their reaction is to ignore the material and hope that if they don’t pay attention to it, or see it with their minds, then reality will reflect their act of not acknowledging it.

The progressive belief that they could wish upon a star or pray to some deity for the demise of a political opponent is in the pretentious belief that they are the center of the universe. This is why such fools belief in global warming, race reparations, and other self-centered microcosmic ideologies built upon the static intellectualism of their limited consciousness. Their adult minds are not much more advanced than the typical 15-year-old, so they fail to grasp many of life’s greater truths in much the fashion that a new-born baby can’t recite the alphabet. They have not yet learned to do such, yet they believe they know everything because through the practice of evasion they ignore the evidence contrary to their world-view.

Obama used evasion to protect his own mind from the reality of the film 2016: Obama’s America. He believes deep down inside like most progressives do, that if they don’t publically recognize the movie, then the movie does not exist. This accounts for many of the media tendency witnessed where things that happen during the Obama administration are ignored, but if the same thing happened during the Bush administration it would have been covered to much greater effect. A great example of this is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was one of the greatest environmental disasters in human history. But the media, because they tend to be progressive and practice evasion did not want to see such a thing happen under a president who represented to them a period at the end of the Civil Rights sentence. It’s not that they all conspired to lean left for a political outcome, but they do practice as much of the political left does evasion, which causes them to ignore facts that don’t fit their version of reality.

As another example on the low-end of political theater, is any public school filled with government employees. These are progressive organizations and are virtually all the same. So for this example I will use the well documented Lakota Schools that has so well be chronicled at this site. As I write this Karen Mantia the superintendent who has been hired by the school board to come into Lakota to pass a school levy is attempting to hire public relations personal who can alter the reality of the facts I’ve presented as to why the school as a $200 million plus operation per year should be able to balance their budget given their declining enrollment without trouble. The things I have said do not fit the progressive approach to public education so Mantia and those under her have chosen to ignore the facts and instead believe that they can go around me and convert the minds of the district into their version of reality.

They even went to elaborate measures to separate me from what they perceived the tax increase resistance group No Lakota Levy was. Karen Mantia believes that if she meets with members of the “business” community and gets their support, that she can divide and conquer the resistance to her tax increase and flourish as a result. She is practicing evasion of reality, just like Barack Obama. She is ignoring the reason for the budget crunch, the impact that the greedy labor unions have imposed on a good school district supported by good residents. She is practicing this evasion because her chosen reality has made her wealthy, much more so than she could have achieved on her own. She believes because of this wealth, and because she holds a doctorate that she is on the same level of intellect as the members of the business community, and can play such games with full knowledge of the chess board. But due to her evasion from reality, she is only looking at her pieces, and she does not see the checkmate coming at her because she has chosen to not see it, much to her own demise. Her belief is that her doctorate has real world value which it doesn’t. She fails to understand that I can organize a hundred new No Lakota Levy groups since it was me at the center of the resistance. Talking to other people doesn’t stop resistance. It’s like trying to put out a fire in your house while staying in a vacation hotel. In this case evasion prevents her from recognizing the static reality threatening her static intellectualism so she hopes by ignoring the facts she can have success. That’s why her budget us a mess.

Much of the evasion that Obama is guilty of nationally and Karen Mantia is guilty of locally is that they both believe they can spend money to hide reality. For America this has led to a 16 trillion-dollar deficit. For Lakota it has led to spending the enormous sum of $160,000 on public relations to help cover up the realities of public education. The only hope that these political progressives have in maintaining their version of reality is to convince others to turn off their minds and participate in evasion.

It is evasion and the tendency of it that creates so much harm and misery. If a grizzly bear is about to attack a hiker in the deep woods, the threat cannot be ignored but the progressive minded will try. They will also be eaten. Just closing ones eyes will not make the bear or the threat go away. And the bear has no use of money, so throwing money at the bear or other bears will not change reality. Evasion is expensive and every politician who practices such a thing should be removed from any position of responsibility immediately. They are harmful to themselves, and others in ways that are detrimental to all of civilization.

Rich Hoffman

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The ACLU: Black Knights disguised as galliant freedom fighters

The ACLU advertises itself as being an organization that fights for the rights of the people and protects free speech. But the true nature of the ACLU agenda has roots that run deep into the gardens of society. And those gardens as they exist now are full of weeds pushed up by the ACLU.

A representative of the ACLU, an earnest man from the Ohio chapter, not too long ago spoke at a Tea Party event in southern Ohio, for the Liberty Township group, a satellite of the Cincinnati Tea Party. In his talk he was questioned about why the ACLU was suing Arizona for its new immigration law. The man then danced vigorously on the stage, even though there wasn’t any music.

He was of course not literally dancing, but was dancing with words which infuriated the Tea Party group, because it had become obvious he couldn’t give a straight answer. The audience wondered why a group named, the American Civil Liberties Union, didn’t represent the Americans terrorized by illegal immigrants and border violence, but chose to take a position in favor of people who weren’t even American citizens.

The credibility of the ACLU will always be in question. This is a group that gives legitimacy to groups like NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, but is shy to take up positions which favor the Second Amendment, hiding behind the Supreme Court case of United States v. Miller in 1939. In that case, the right to own a gun transported across state lines was attacked because it wasn’t a gun that could be used in a militia and the gun fell under commerce because it was transported from Oklahoma to Arkansas. Such legal dancing is routine, and is the embodiment of how our current case-law has drifted far from the original constitutional intentions. If the ACLU put the same energy into defending Second Amendment rights, or 10th Amendment rights instead of groups like NAMBLA, we might have a much different country that more accurately represents what the founders envisioned.

But the ACLU has chosen to walk down the road that has had more influence on our constitution than most any organization, and they’ve done it by forming case-law around issues like homosexual rights in the military, or the right of a man to lust after a young boy. As a group of only 500,000 members it generates over $85 million in revenue. This makes it a cleverly disguised lobby group for some of the more radical members of our society that have indirectly attacked the principles of our constitution. And this lobby group is attacking elements of our country like cancer cells do to the human body.

The ACLU has been routinely affiliated with communists. In 1940, they formally banned communists from the organization, even though the founder, Roger Baldwin was a former supporter of communism, in order to give an appearance of neutrality in legal cases. Bernadine Dohrn, leader of the Weather Underground and wife of Bill Ayers was a legal researcher in 1990 and 1991. She is one that took a stand of support for the violence of Charlie Manson during the Helter Skelter issue. With such people in the ACLU, is it any surprise that the ACLU opposes capital punishment because of its ultimate denial of civil liberties? Charles Manson’s trial expenditure came to over $770,000 and his cost of imprisonment has cost tax payers more than $644,000. In such a clear-cut case, such as the Manson issue, why has he been allowed to burden our tax system, along with thousands like him? The ACLU is proud that it takes on any client without judgment. But what the ACLU leaves in its wake is a path of destructive case law that cripples our legal system.

Was it such a great victory for free speech to have the Ten Commandments removed from the courthouses of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, when so much of our country was founded on principles of divine trust and guidance? The ACLU successfully attacked The Ten Commandments, but is silent on the violation of the 10th Amendment over the Health Care Bill. Our Constitution is a uniquely profound document. It has produced the greatest country on the face of the earth in known history. However, it allows groups like the ACLU to exist because of the Constitution, even if the intent of the ACLU is to subtly attack the founding document and reshape it into something more akin to The Communist Manifesto.

Beware of those white knights that proclaim to help, such as how the ACLU portrays itself. They may actually use the guise of goodness as a way to get behind our defenses and destroy everything from within. And the well-intentioned speaker from the Ohio Chapter, bright-eyed and believing that he is the champion for the weak, and defender of the Constitution…..that is why we have the Second Amendment. We don’t need the ACLU. It’s time to tend to our garden and start pulling the weeds, so the flowers can bloom. And it’s time to spread some mulch so the weeds can be choked off from the sunlight, and stop growing. Once all the weeds are gone, and we can see our garden again, we’ll be surprised at how robust that garden flourishes.

In the garden of America it is groups like the ACLU, NAMBLA, Teacher’s unions, lawyers in general, multi-term politicians and presidents who want to be remembered as kings who are our weeds, and it’s time now to remove them from our landscape.

 

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Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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My Dream Teacher: A divided country–50 + 1

Much has been said about what kind of teachers we don’t want in public education at this site. But we don’t often think about what kind of teachers we do want. Well, one fine example of the kind of teacher I would like to see employed in my district is Kathleen Lyday of Grandview Elementary School or rather the way she is represented at the letter shown below and presented on Gary Jeff Walker’s page at 700 WLW.

http://www.700wlw.com/pages/onair_garyjeff.html

This letter is said to have been sent to President Obama, but as it turns out, it looks to have been falsified—just a wishful dream of conservative leaning patriots yearning for a teacher who has some courage to stand up to modern-day tyranny. Whether it’s a hoax or the truth, the words deserve to be read as they do paint the picture wonderfully of a growing sentiment that is boiling like a volcano about to erupt in America.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States . You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.

I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain-dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States ? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia …. You didn’t show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia .. How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You can’t find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don’t want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey …… You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What’s the matter with you? I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you.

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven’t said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn’t!

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that’s $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven’t you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now?

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you.

I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

Ms Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School

Unfortunately, I do not believe that Kathleen Lyday of Grandview Elementary School wrote the letter seen above, because such a thing would be too good to be true. Instead, reality says that most of the teachers working at Grandview as well as most public schools all across the country have allowed themselves to be divided up into specific bloc voting groups dictated by machine politics and lack the courage to have thoughts of their own. Most likely, Katheleen Lyday will tend to vote the way other women in her age group vote, because she sees herself as “one of the girls.” Or perhaps she will vote the way her labor union suggests after looking over the insane amount of political material the union sends her to endorse candidates. And chances are, if Kathleen Lyday is a real teacher from Grandview Elementary School, she is planning to vote for Obama, not against him, so that he will steal more tax money from citizens all over America and give some of that money to the education sector of which she’s a part, as all the employees of the teaching profession open their mouths wide like baby birds in a nest awaiting their mother government to drop a worm in their starving mouths.

Yes, it was a great dream while it lasted—because these days such courage coming from a public employee is as realistic as the most extreme science fiction drawn in a comic book. In reality we are a divided country, and it will take a major awakening to bring the real Kathleen Lyday’s to the surface where fiction can eventually become a reality.

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!!  Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

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

Atlas Shrugged Part 2: Green lit and ready for production!

I make no attempt to hide the fact that I think Atlas Shrugged is one of the greatest novels of all time, and that Ayn Rand is one of the greatest philosophers in the history of mankind. When the recent film, Atlas Shrugged Part 1 came out to scathing reviews, the establishment found themselves attempting to deface the film at every turn. The reason for all the commotion is that Atlas Shrugged is essentially a philosophy that decertifies the altruistic tendencies of our modern society.

I thought the makers of the film version attempted a bold endeavor and everything was uphill for them. With the rights for the film being bounced between film icons like Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie who wanted to make a film version, it was obvious that traditional Hollywood could not get their minds around a film version of the massive book that is Atlas Shrugged. After much trial and tribulation, it was decided to proceed to film the movie in a three-part series with Part 1 coming out on April 15th 2011 with John Aglialoro producing assisted by a team of very dedicated Ayn Rand fans. What resulted was an entertaining film that left people traditionally viewing characters of business as villains lost to articulate their feelings, and wanting to lash out at the movie for challenging their stereotypes. Aglialoro had committed to making all three films, but after taking a beating on the first one, he has wisely sought to take his time and pull in even more talent for the very challenging 2nd and 3rd films.

I am pleased to have received in my email box yesterday a notice from the producers that they are proceeding now with Part 2 and have obtained the additional talent of Duncan Scott who worked on Ayn Rand’s We the Living film. Part 2 is set to be released in October 2012 amidst the presidential election which will be appropriate, and the team has released this teaser trailer to entice the legions of hungry fans.

The film versions of Atlas Shrugged are caught between a rock and a hard place. Without the top line talent of the Steven Spielberg’s or George Clooney’s of the world, Hollywood will of course look down its nose at the production values of these films. The greatest film makers in our modern times are unfortunately against everything that Atlas Shrugged is for, so top-level talent is hard to come by for an epic film like this. On the other hand, lovers of the book like me will undoubtedly feel frustration because there is no way to put into a movie the depth that a book like Atlas Shrugged can provide. But that’s ok, because the films serve as completely adequate cliff notes versions of the book and are a wonderful way to introduce the work of Ayn Rand to an audience that may not have heard about her before.

Atlas Shrugged whether we are talking about the book or the movies is not a simple work of just a story intended to entertain. Atlas Shrugged is a work of philosophy. As a work of philosophy it is OK to not have all the usual Hollywood flare, because it’s the meaning of the work that is important. And the film makers have done well to install that philosophy into the movie as seen in the clips below where scenes from the first film are broke down and analyzed for their meaning.

I ran into Ayn Rand for the first time while reading the book Dutch by Edmond Morris. Morris made a mention about the life and times of Ronald Reagan during the 50’s and Ayn Rand’s ubermensch novels were best sellers then. Well the word ubermensch means in German overman which is a concept Nietzsche talked about extensively in Thus Spoke Zarathustra so Morris’s choice of words to describe Ayn Rand sparked my interest. I think he meant it in a derogatory way. But if the progressives didn’t like her, there was a sure bet that I would so I checked out Ayn Rand and discovered that she had arrived at many of the same conclusions about life as I did. Reading her was an affirmation that many of my thoughts were not wrong, and better yet, she had made predictions a half a century earlier that were coming true now. So her work was a validation that I had been on the correct path all along.

The troubling aspect however was that I had always read a lot, and it wasn’t until my upper 30’s that I discovered this very prolific writer, even when that writer was essentially a carbon copy to the type of material that I enjoy reading and writing myself. That is because the work of Ayn Rand had been purposely kept from the public mind for the most part by the kinds of progressive groups who are the villains of Atlas Shrugged in a literal sense.

Over Christmas 2011 my father-in-law who is also a prolific reader, and a school teacher who holds a master’s degree in geology had told me about this great new movie called Atlas Shrugged over dinner. I stared open-mouthed at him as he went on and on about how much he loved the film. I couldn’t believe that he had never heard of the book. After all, he was in high school when the book came out, so I would have thought that at some point he would have run into the material.

He assured me that he had not, and he said the movie made him want to read the book and he planned to get the novel the next time he was at a book store. I told him to wait a moment, that I’d be right back. I excused myself from the dinner table and left my family sitting there while I got into the car and drove down to the local Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Louisville. Not wanting my food to get cold, I told the girl at the help counter, “I have an emergency; my father-in-law has never read Atlas Shrugged. I need a copy of it right now so I can rectify that situation.” She smiled and said that has been happening a lot lately, since the movie had come out. People were pouring into the book store and demanding Ayn Rand’s works! I gave my father-in-law Atlas Shrugged at the dinner table when I returned and his smile was from ear to ear as he held it in his hands as though he possessed magic between his finger tips.

That is why the movies are so important, because our society has had this fantastic work by Ayn Rand covered up to some extent for 50 years. Apparently some literature classes in high schools and colleges have exposed students to Atlas Shrugged, but for the most part the literary classic has been discouraged by progressive groups, and now that the movies are starting to be made, the films are igniting curiosity into actually reading Atlas Shrugged so that more of the philosophy can be absorbed in the written word than could ever be shown on the silver screen.

To me a film is successful if it entertains first, and then leaves the viewer hungry for more information at the conclusion. And for those who do not know the work of Atlas Shrugged these films are introducing millions upon millions of people to a whole new way of thinking that is uniquely American, and I think it’s absolutely wonderful! So the news that the producers have managed to scrape together the money and talent to produce the second film is great news and I will be a tremendous advocate helping wherever I can so that more and more people will be exposed to the wonderful philosophy of Ayn Rand which is virtually inseparable from my own philosophy. For more information on Part 2, there is a new website that let fans follow the progress to its completion and release in October.

http://www.atlasshruggedmovie.com/

Stay tuned!

To learn what a Overmanwarrior is CLICK HERE:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/the-overmanwarriors-eating-fighting-and-philosophizing-the-keys-to-a-good-life/

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

Watch Rich Hoffman’s favorite T.V. show:

http://www.foxnews.com/freedomwatch/

The Levy Freaks Have Built a Damn: Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom readers are the Taliban?

I personally believe you are all as radical as the Taliban and as anti-American. I would never consider living in, near or allowing my children attend Lakota because of these types of elements on this site. You are all very ignorant and hopefully you are teaching your offspring Chinese since they will be bearing the slaves for the Chinese people in the future.

Anne Hoffman

With that note, the woman listed there, not related to me, lashed out at all who read my Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom articles. It took me a moment to figure out where I had heard her name before. Then at our last No Lakota Levy meeting, one of our guys reminded me who the woman was, she used to work at the Pulse Journal and was moved to the Carolina’s recently. It’s obvious that Anne is still following closely the events happening in the Lakota School system by reading this website, and she doesn’t like what she is sees.

Her comments are specifically startling in that she was a former employee of the Pulse Journal and it shows a definite pro levy bias and confirms what many fear, that there are elements in the media who are bought and paid for by the organized labor elements involved in these tax increases. I can report with honesty that all reporters for the Pulse Journal are not levy sympathizers, but are honest reporters who cut the news down the line and are not the types who lean in favor of organized labor and the emotion of school funding.

It is difficult for the sensitive reporter to put on blinders to the common extortion tactic used in public education and see the situation for what it is. We have been seeing this with the recent levy attempt at Forest Hills in Anderson Township. They are putting up a levy and held a pep rally over the weekend to use school spirit and community pride to sell the true extortion and lack of management utilized in public education to the public. The tactics used now for their March election are the same used everywhere in the state of Ohio, and it is a sickening enterprise to see how manipulative they are.

Reporters must use logic to see beyond these veils of emotion, and it is very difficult to do. And people like Anne Hoffman are guilty of being seduced by the evil of extortion. That is their sin against their communities.

As I write this I have no doubt that the labor movement of southern Ohio is clapping as Doc Thompson will no longer be on 700 WLW and is returning back to his show in Richmond, Virginia. Doc and I did many hours of radio coverage exposing how this game is played and southern Ohio is waking up from the nightmare of extortion that public education has employed for two decades now in part because of those broadcasts. So without question the traditional education advocates are happy that Doc Thompson is leaving. I also know that there are many of those same types who are happy that Steve Mathews of the Pulse Journal has been moved from covering Lakota to covering Middletown, in a maneuver that has separated the two of us from a productive working relationship.

In all the interviews I had with Doc Thompson or Steven Mathews, we never mislead anyone. In fact, we excelled in telling the truth. It is the truth that these public education advocates fear, and it is in their hope of hiding the truth that they applaud the move of Mathews to a different market, and Doc Thompson to a different city.

So why does Anne Hoffman want to call me and the readers here names by saying we are equal to the Taliban, known extremist terrorists? Do the words written here dictate such an accusation? Because it is those like Anne, and others who naively advocate tax increases who fear the truth from not just becoming public knowledge, but from becoming known to their own minds. Levy advocates do not want to know the truth. They don’t want to hear it on the radio, they don’t want to read it in the paper, and they don’t want it to be seen here.

I have first hand knowledge that there were many letters and phone calls made by levy radicals to remove the voices in the Pulse Journal from interviewing me so often. I know that 700 WLW has also been pummeled with requests to boycott the station and silence the voices who are making people everywhere hear the truth behind this extortion game that goes on using our children as tools to pass school levies. And with all the protests, there have been small successes along the way. The levy freaks have managed to convince some members of management in various news organizations to put on the blinders and not cover the truth, and if the reporters don’t tow the company line, those reporters find themselves reassigned to the applause of the establishment.

Well, I am sorry to inform those clapping despots; your successes are short-lived. You don’t like this website and consider me and my readers to be terrorists because we wish to undo your empire, and we will have it. Doc may be in a different city, but I have all those recordings available here for all interested to listen to again and again. The facts have been already displayed and they are preserved here for posterity. And if something tragic were to become of this website, the plans are already in place that if this information should be taken away as a free service to the public that my backup systems will offer them again and again in cyberspace for all eternity. And if that fails we will offer the research here in hard cover form as a book, or a series of books. But one way or the other, the information will be provided to the public.

It must also be remembered that before Doc Thompson and I illuminated all of Cincinnati with the truth involved in public education, it was Scott Sloan who first put me on the radio to advocate that truth. And Darryl Parks and I have also had many conversations on the radio, and still do, so you might want to hold your clapping, because this whole thing is far from over. In fact, I’d say the momentum is irreversibly moving in a direction not to the liking of the levy freaks.

Those in the media like Anne Hoffman can wish all they want that they can hush the voices of people like me in an effort to preserve their extortion. But it’s too late. The education has already happened, and it’s available for all to see. The message is already out and cannot be reversed. The attempts by the levy apologists are akin to a single person trying to stick their fingers in a cracking damn, as they stick their fingers in every hole from which water pours out. Yet the cracks are visibly climbing up and around the damn and more and more sprouts of water are seeping through, and there aren’t enough fingers to plug all the holes.

The water in this case is made up of the truth, and the truth will seep through every crack, every void and probe every weakness looking for a way to free itself. And for those members of the media who have made themselves the damn which holds back all this truth, you cannot escape the fate that is evident. The damn is breaking, and all who are in the way of the truth that rushes forth will find themselves crushed by the force of all that pent-up mass. When that happens it won’t be Rich Hoffman, the readers of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, Steven Mathews, or Doc Thompson that will be to blame. It will be those who built the damn in the first place and maintained it with constant upkeep on the backs of children. All a person like me has to do is crack that damn, which has already been done. The rest will happen on it’s own by the force of nature and is at the point of no return which gives me great joy in the midst’s of a heavy heart.

As that damn comes down, I have to smile at comments like Anne Hoffman’s. A terrorist? I suppose that is relative to a point of view, and to those who have used terror to scare tax payers into higher taxes, anything that robs the levy freaks of this method would be considered bad—or evil—-to them. So I take comments like the opening note as evidence that I’m on the right track, and will keep doing it until every last remnant of that damn is down.

To learn what a Overmanwarrior is CLICK HERE:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/the-overmanwarriors-eating-fighting-and-philosophizing-the-keys-to-a-good-life/

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

Watch Rich Hoffman’s favorite T.V. show:

http://www.foxnews.com/freedomwatch/