Category: Progressive

Godzilla the Destroyer: Why Japanese culture wins at business and politics

Large companies strapped with labor union rules have turned to Japan hoping to learn something through Six Sigma or some other borrowed manufacturing method to improve their delivery times and product quality.  But they seldom ever work with spectacular results leaving companies to “cook the books” so to justify their commitment to such programs because the workers are still operating with the same type of mentality that they did before any written procedure.  The Japanese people think differently than other people in the world.  The root of their differences is their firm commitment to Shinto Buddhism passed down to their culture through their Samurai history.  To understand a bit of Shinto Buddhism one must understand the nature of what Shinto is.  The most modern example of Shinto to Japanese culture is the films of Godzilla—which is about to get a major upgrade from Warner Brothers in 2014.  See the preview below which has me very, very excited.  I love Godzilla—King of the Monsters! 

Godzilla’s allegiance and motivations have changed from film to film to suit the needs of the story. Although Godzilla does not like humans,[38] it will fight alongside humanity against common threats. However, it makes no special effort to protect human life or property much the way Japanese people see the world [39] and will turn against its human allies on a whim. It is not motivated to attack by predatory instinct: it doesn’t eat people,[25] and instead sustains itself on radiation[40] and an omnivorous diet.[36][41] When inquired if Godzilla was “good or bad”, producer Shogo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto “God of Destruction” which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. “He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin.”[25]  Godzilla represents Japanese culture and their ability to deal with major tragedy and give rebirth to their country over and over again.  It is in this resiliency that the Japanese people find they are one of the most productive countries in the world—and able to embrace capitalism with a warm support that has caused their economy to swell.  Per capita, they are among the most productive people in existence.  Below are just a few attributes and interesting facts about Japanese culture.

Japanese children clean their schools every day for a quarter of an hour with teachers. This led to the emergence of a Japanese generation who is modest and keen on cleanliness.

* Any  Japanese citizen who has a dog must carry special bags to pick up dog droppings. Hygiene and their eagerness to address cleanliness is part of Japanese ethics.

* A hygiene worker in Japan is called “health engineer” and can command salary of USD 5000 to 8000 per month, and a  cleaner is subjected to written and oral tests!!

* Japan does not have any natural resources, and they are exposed to hundreds of earthquakes a year, but this has not prevented its becoming the second largest economy in the  world.

* In just ten years Hiroshima returned to what it was economically vibrant before the fall of the atomic bomb.

* Japan prevents the use of mobile phones in trains, restaurants and indoors.

* For first to sixth primary year Japanese students must learn ethics in dealing with people.

* Even though one of the richest people in the world, the Japanese do not have servants.The parents are responsible for the house and children.

* There is no examination from the first to the third primary level because the goal of education is to instill concepts and character building.

* If  you go to a buffet restaurant in Japan you will notice people only eat as much as they need without any waste because food must not be wasted.

* The rate of delayed trains in Japan is about 7 seconds per year!!
The Japanese appreciate the value of time and are very punctual to minutes and seconds.

* Children in schools brush their teeth (sterile) and clean their teeth after a meal at school, teaching them to maintain their health from an early age.

* Japanese students take half an hour to finish their meals to ensure proper digestion because these students are the future of Japan.

The Japanese focus on maintaining their own culture.
Therefore. . . .

* No political leader or a prime minister from an Islamic nation has ever visited Japan – not the Ayatollah of Iran, the King of Saudi Arabia or even a Saudi Prince!!

* Japan is a country keeping Islam at bay by putting strict restrictions on Islam and ALL Muslims.

      1) Japan is the only nation that does NOT give citizenship to Muslims.
      2) In Japan permanent residency is NOT given  to Muslims.
      3) There is a strong BAN on the propagation of Islam in Japan .
      4) In the University of Japan , Arabic or any Islamic language is NOT taught.
      5) One CANNOT import a ‘Koran’ published in the Arabic language.
      6) According to data published by the Japanese  government, it has given temporary residency to only 2  lakhs,(Muslims), who             must follow the Japanese Law of the Land. These  Muslims should speak Japanese and carry their religious rituals in their                 homes.
      7) Japan is the only country in the world that has a negligible number of embassies in Islamic countries.
      8) Muslims residing in Japan are the employees of foreign companies.
      9) Even today, visas are not granted to Muslim doctors, engineers or managers sent by foreign companies.
    10) In the majority of companies it is stated in their regulations that NO Muslims should apply for a job.
    11) The Japanese government is of the opinion that Muslims are fundamentalist, and even in the era of globalization they  are                  not willing to change their Muslim laws.
    12) Muslims CANNOT even rent a house in Japan.
    13) If anyone comes to know that his neighbor is a Muslim then the whole neighborhood stays alert.
    14) No one can start an Islamic cell or Arabic ‘Madrasa’ in Japan 
    15) There is NO Sharia law in Japan .
    16) If a Japanese woman marries a Muslim, she is considered an outcast  forever!
    17) According to Mr. Kumiko Yagi, Professor of Arab/Islamic Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, ” There is a mind               frame in Japan that Islam is a very narrow-minded religion and one should stay away from it, permanently!

Years ago when I was younger I worked at Cincinnati Milacron as a lathe machine rebuilder, and on my tool box where my co-workers had pictures of naked women, cars, and sports figures, mine had a photo of The Millennium Falcon and a list of the 9 Ways of the Samurai taken from Miyamoto Musashi’s epic book called The Book of Five Rings.  They are as follows:

  1. Do not think dishonestly.

  2. The Way is in training.

  3. Become acquainted with every art.

  4. Know the Ways of all professions.

  5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.

  6. Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything.

  7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen.

  8. Pay attention even to trifles.

  9. Do nothing which is of no use.

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

I studied and studied and studied those words, and read Miyamoto Musashi’s book over and over again—I still do.  The book means so much to me that I gave a copy of it to both of my son-in-laws so that they could learn how to be a proper man with those basic foundations.  Godzilla is the monster embodiment of all those 9 Ways and is unique to Japanese culture.  They are also the key to why the Japanese are so epically successful while other aspects of world culture struggles.

I don’t agree with everything the Japanese do—for instance they are gross collectivists.  But the 9 Ways of the Samurai are something that should come out of American culture and the cowboy lore of our foundation rather than the Samurai of Japan.  But what I do admire is that they have a value system which they preserve, and those values show up in their economy.  You don’t hear of labor unions ruining the Japanese people—they wouldn’t put up with it—because their Shinto Buddhist belief system would prevent them from adhering to union rules in the fashion so prevalent in the United States or communist countries.  The movie monster Godzilla is the embodiment of their belief system, the destructive nature of terror mixed with the life renewing force of rebirth.  To them, rebirth is an opportunity to correct things and live again, where in the West it is something to be terrified of, and avoided.  Godzilla is their way of dealing with the bombing of Hiroshima, and most recently the tsunami that caused such havoc over much of their country.  In Japan, they embrace fear, death, and sorrow with a boldness which allows them to get right back on their feet again and keep producing—because their value system holds them together.

American businesses have tried to study the Japanese with the hope that they could copy off their paper without adopting their way of thinking.  I watched labor disputes end Cincinnati Milacron while I worked there and read Musashi’s quotes as workers protested the loss of their jobs.  I used to contemplate that the people I worked with were fools not in touch with the Way of life—the Way of a living force for good and bad.  The Japanese tap into this energy and make vibrant economies with a land mass the size of most states in America.  The miracle of their society is within those 9 Samurai Ways.  But their mythology is most impressively—and metaphorically present in the movie monster Godzilla—a creature from the distant past—victimized by mankind’s destructive trends—only to become a destroyer of all that is oppressive—in a process that is life-renewing…instead of considered traditionally destructive.

To read more about Miyamoto Musashi click the link below:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

And be ready to see Godzilla in the summer of2014.  I’ll be the first in line!

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The “Middle Class” Insult: Differences between vacations in Kansas and Hawaii

Who plans a trip to Kansas or Iowa for a vibrant family vacation that they’ve saved up for a year to embark on?  Almost nobody.  The only people who do visit these places do so primarily to visit family members. Most would consider a vacation to destinations like Disney World, Atlantis in the Bahamas, or Hawaii to be……….good, respectable, and worth the effort.  When people decide to take a vacation to a luxurious destination, there is a promise of goods and services that are beyond the scope of every day life which is the aim of their experience.  A vacation to Kansas, Iowa or any other Midwestern state lacking such luxuries just isn’t very attractive—certainly not worth saving up large sums of money to experience.  Well the same could be said when the government says that they want to bring more people into the “middle-class.”  When government oriented people, and union leaders say people should strive to be in the middle class, they are essentially saying that people should strive to vacation in Kansas instead of reaching for the stars in Hawaii.  The middle class is not a destination worth pursuing—it is simply a settlement—a concession to the life dreams of youth—and it is appalling.

The middle class is not something people should strive to become.  They should in America strive to become upper-class—or to live their lives beyond a class system all together.  They should live life beyond judgments of any kind—but if such things are required, the opinion that should be pursued is to have “class” and work to elevate their lives and the families who depend on them to heights of respectability.  To state that one wishes to become a member of the “middle class” is essentially declaring that they are taking their family to Kansas for vacation to look at large fields of farming that extend to the edge of the world.  Kansas is a wonderful place for grain production, and family value—but not exactly a vacation destination for anyone who has their eyes on something more exotic.  For people who would settle on such a vacation they are purposely avoiding the scope and culture of a world beyond those fields.

When government states that they want to expand the “middle class” they are saying that people should not strive to become members of the “elite” which is how they often see themselves.  They want a middle class because they want a voting population that is willing to settle into being comfortably numb and subservient to them.  The term middle class is the desire of the upper class—so-called—to rule over someone, and the desire is exclusively created to set a target for people’s lives which do not challenge the established peaking order of the political class—who wish to believe they rule over everyone else.

I dare anybody to produce a name to this website of a very wealthy person not involved in politics to some extent.  I’m sure there are some, but there are not many.  The reason is that wealthy people from the upper class are expected to contribute to political campaigns to keep politicians from looting their lifestyle in other ways.  This activity gives politicians the illusion that they are members of the upper class—because they tend to associate with members of society who are wealthy.  They don’t often speak to the common middle class people—until they want votes—and when they want those votes, they want to know who the middle class people are, what their ambitions are, and where they want to go for vacation.  It helps the cause of the politician if the members of the middle class don’t expect too much in life so it is easier for them to provide government services to meet their desires.  So they encourage people into the “middle class” with the same reasoning that a lazy, no good father takes his family to Kansas to watch plants grow on a farm because they are too cheap to take their family to Disney World. So politicians lower the expectations so it is easier to fulfill the parameters of a good vacation.

Calling someone a member of the “middle class” is like calling them a cheap suit, a fast food restaurant, or in more equitable terms a Ford Focus as opposed to Lamborghini.  You make do if that’s all you can accomplish, but you certainly would not consider “aspiring” to such a thing.  To accept a Ford Focus is to settle, but one should always work in their life to drive a Lamborghini………..they may never get there, but their life will be better because they at least tried.  Being in the “middle class” is to settle for a life that one is not in charge of—that is always subservient to a “ruling class” where ironically the people who are most vocal about a middle class speak the loudest.

Any education system which trains citizens to be “middle class” is deliberately stunting the economic growth of its society.  Any politician who promotes the middle class is seeking to rule over the minds of the masses.  Any citizen happy to be one of the middle class is a lazy antithesis to the dreamers born of freedom.  They are disingenuous to their nation and to themselves for setting the bar so low that they hold down everyone connected intellectually with them just a little bit—enough to have catastrophic consequences on human development.

The middle class is not something to aspire to, it is an insult—and politicians routinely utilize that dialogue so that it has become common place—so common that it doesn’t even come across as an insult.  For those who are content to say—I’m just a simple man of simple means—and am happy to be in the middle of the pack—then being in the middle class is where they belong.  But there are those who are like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and many others who are not content to stand in line behind the rules politicians have outlined for mankind, and be content to stay in the middle class.  They reach for the stars and sometimes snag one—and all of society is better for it.  But to catch a star someone has to reach for them, and in the middle class, most are fat, dumb, and happy to just have their average car, their average wife, their average children, their average education, their average house, their average mind, their average cloths, their average intellect and measure themselves not against the best in society but their neighbor and what kind of lawn mower they have, what vehicle they drive, and dress they way they dress.  Politicians love those types of people because they do what they are told and do not question anything that might make them stand apart from the crowd.  They are the middle class and when someone declares that they are of that “class” the term is an insult—not a credit.

No child would admire a parent who grants their family a trip to Kansas when they had Disney World as an alternative.  The reason trips to exotic places are more rewarding than those to common—easy destinations that are far cheaper, and more practical is because the expensive, hard to reach objective means more, and yields better.  It is not admirable to just be average—but trying to be exceptional is commendable—and that is a trait that cannot be engineered from the human mind.  It is attempted with modern education, but it has not been successful. People deep down inside share a love for the exceptional, and they yearn to reach for the stars themselves.  But most fall victim to the old scam from politics declaring that the middle class is a destination worthy of lifelong endowment.  Yet it’s not, being in the middle class is just an announcement that they are not a threat to the powers who crave to live in the upper class—the class where the wealthy give financial donations to parasites called politicians, and those same politicians gain the illusion of power because their associates are donors trying to buy government off their back.  Such people need someone to rule over—so they call those people “middle class” and insist that if everyone stays in that category—then the government will care for them like a nice and noble king.  It is the unsaid rule to the class system inherited by the debauchery of Europe—that the middle class exists, and is a term that should have no place in the language of America.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Kasich’s Medicaid Expansion in Ohio: Eating Sausage McMuffins with Egg and reading USA Today

A ritual I have which I have done for years is have breakfast at McDonald’s and read the USA Today over a Sausage McMuffin with Egg sandwich, a large Coke, and a hash brown.  I don’t do it every day, but often enough to call such an activity a ritual and way to touch base with a newspaper I have read since I was 15-years-old.  An article about Medicaid expansion roused my attention particularly since Ohio’s governor John Kasich bypassed the Republican legislature to expand the program under Obamacare’s Supreme Court ruling calling it a tax.  Kasich’s premise is that the money is there for Medicaid, and can be brought into the state for his benefit.  He thinks he’s doing a financially prudent thing, but he’s simply taking the cheese of the federal mousetrap set by Obama and his cronies.  For a governor who ran as a Tea Party candidate—Kasich was one of the first “traditional Republicans” exposed as a RINO after the 2010 elections—when the Tea Party put him into office—but lacked the courage to stick with the program.  The topic of Medicaid expansion in many states like Ohio and Michigan reminded me of a recent broadcast done by Matt Clark at WAAM radio in Ann Arbor.  He covered the lack of accountability recently in Washington and how the rules are often made up as they go—and the Medicaid issue is a perfect example of the shell game that often goes on in politics.  Kasich wants to make a run for President in 2016 and needs to distance himself from the Senate Bill 5 debate of 2011 where he took a hit with the public unions.  So he is targeting the poor to take away Democratic votes from any challengers in 2014 so he can get re-elected.  He is justifying the process by saying that he’s being fiscally smart—the money will be spent anyway—but he ignores that the money the government is dangling is part of the same $17 trillion that is already in deficit with the federal government and at the core of the whole problem.  Kasich by-passed his legislature to gain access to money the federal government doesn’t have so that he can run for president breaking every rule of checks and balances there is—the ends justify the means.  And he sells it as a benefit to taxpayers when the whole escapade is a validation of Obamacare which was shoved down America’s throats on a Christmas holiday way back in 2009—illicitly.  Later the Supreme Court said the maneuvers were valid as a tax increase, but that was not how the government sold Obamacare—and was deceitful—which is typical among all parties involved in the Medicaid exchange expansion at every level.  Have a listen to Matt Clark then check out the USA Today article.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/05/rejecting-medicaid-costs-states-more/3871811/

The way that USA Today article reads, states not accepting Medicaid expansion are “losing money” which is deceitful, because the federal government is borrowing the money anyway—there isn’t any money they are giving away generated from some legitimate source.  What the government is doing with Medicaid expansion in order to promote their Obamacare legislation is basically take participating states out to dinner and paying for it with a credit card that is way over their ability to pay the bill.  It’s easy to be generous with a $1000 meal when the borrower has no intention to pay off the food—ever.  The federal government has no incentive—or desire to pay back the money it is borrowing to expand Medicaid—and is only doing it to pull governors like Kasich away from his Republican base to throw money at a voting platform that typically wouldn’t vote for him.  Kasich is looking for voter replacements that he won’t have in cops, firefighters and Tea Party supporters in the poor—which the federal government also created, just as they control the public sector unions.

USA Today is a Gannett Company, the same outfit that runs the Cincinnati Enquirer—so they tend to lean toward progressive causes.  I have read that paper for many years so I can understand how the other side thinks about things and see how such scams are promoted within the ranks of big government supporters.  But I don’t trust blindly anything they say.  They almost always have a big government position on issues like Medicaid expansion and have for over the thirty years that I have read the paper at McDonald’s.  What they always fail to cover is where the money ultimately comes from in such schemes.  They sell the story like government makes the money that is given to Ohio—and never take the story to the next level of “why.”  That is where they and politicians looking to take advantage of the general public ignorance like Kasich are disingenuous to their readers and constituents.

Kasich these days is listening to his progressive, RINO friends—all big government people who are left over fossils from the 60s.  They believe that the exploitation of the poor can be beneficial since the money is being tossed out of the federal government through Obamacare anyway, so why not take some of it.  I have heard similar comments come from 700 WLW’s Bill Cunningham demanding that John Boehner bring home some federal money to build a new bridge on I-75 in Cincinnati.  The same type of people tend to be pro-casino hoping that gambling establishments can generate more taxable income on fools stupid enough to throw their money away on chance.  All their personal philosophies are built on foolish fiscal manipulations and deceit.  Behind Kasich’s efforts of Medicaid expansion his actions are ominous in his circumcision of the state legislature and serve the end result of validating Obamacare—allowing its tentacles of power to seep even deeper into American society—which was the plan behind the federal money to begin with.

The money coming from the Medicaid exchange in Ohio, Michigan and all states that set up such fiascos is stolen money from the future of America.  It doesn’t even exist since it was created under deficit conditions.  So it isn’t fiscally responsible to take it—nobody has lost anything except the future tax payers who must fund the deficit spending that allows Kasich to win votes from the poor in Ohio for his re-election.  For a guy who ran as a Tea Party candidate—Kasich has turned out to be a terrible statist—no different than Obama in legislative policy—by-passing his legislature and ruling from the governor’s seat like an emperor.  And the federal money he is taking to win his next election is stolen from the future with a government credit card that nobody has any intention of paying off—ever!  Yet USA Today isn’t worried about any of that so long as they get more Americans addicted to Obamacare until it is too big to repeal from some future legislative body.  USA Today is supposed to be the media which creates accountability—but since they are in bed with the Obama administration and applaud the actions of statists like John Kasich—the conditions Matt Clark brought up on his radio broadcast will continue.  Government is not accountable because the media is filled with activists for statism and is intent to create a society of second handers through their published work.

Well, the news as usual was bad in USA Today—but that’s nothing new.  However, for me the good news came from my Sausage McMuffin with Egg—now that is a damn good sandwich—I never tire of them.  I could eat them like candy—and in American culture it is a great privilege to be able to purchase such a breakfast with a USA Today and read news around the world for a short half hour ritual before a new day.  The sad thing is that the news is not as good as the food—it never is.  As fattening, and unhealthy as many will claim the Sausage McMuffin with Egg to be—it is a whole lot healthier than expanding Medicaid in Ohio, or the borrowing of looted federal money with the sole intention of spreading Obamacare deep into American society where a few power-hungry idiots willing to save their political futures take the bait like headless mice from a trap set by progressives intent to end American culture.  The Sausage McMuffin with Egg is a whole lot better for America than politicians like Obama and Kasich—and their power grabs at the exploitation of the poor, and children, and women that they are so intent to utilize to advance their fun house distortions of fiscal reality with smoke and distorted mirrors that can only hide reality for so long.  USA Today is not interested in that reality—only in the ends which justify the means—and to understand that, one must know what the organization of Socialist International is all about—which the Gannett Company is fully on board with.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.

The Art of the Businessman: Profit is the Academy Award of a job well done

Because of people like Bill Maher—who serves as a spokesman for progressive causes—many believe that “business” is inherently evil, vile, and selfish.  Business people are depicted on shows like Maher’s broadcasts as detrimental to the state of a human being.  Barack Obama has this impression of American business; school levy supporters in our local communities do as well, all of Hollywood projects this image too.  Look at how business was depicted in the film Avatar, or in Robocop—the villains are almost always business people.  I’m sure that’s not always the case—but I’ve seen a lot of movies, and I can’t think of a single instance of where business, and business people are depicted in a heroic circumstance except the Atlas Shrugged movies, or the old Fountainhead film.  Even the great movie Citizen Kane depicted the evils of American business as during the rise and fall of Kane from power—all he really wanted in life was his Rose Bud.  CLICK TO REVIEW.  The hatred for business is very obvious in Maher’s interview shown below where he had on Ron Paul to explain his brand of Repubicanism.

My wife dragged me out shopping over the weekend, which is really hard to do—and as we were leaving I watched some of the tributes to Nelson Mandela on television following his death at the age of 95 years old.  Mandela’s position on apartheid was a good one.  He is the modern version of Gandhi who through pacifism changed the direction of a nation.   He is the primary example of how one man can change a country.  However, Mandela was a communist, and it takes a lot more than making blacks and whites equal to make a country great.  Equality is just one aspect in a very large umbrella of things that must be done correctly for a country to thrive.  And South Africa is not thriving—it’s essentially a third world nation because socialism and communism have left the country with little to nothing in economic activity.  I was thinking about Mandela as my wife and I went shopping for Christmas.  It warms my heart to pull into a shopping complex and see thousands of cars packed into a parking lot trying to navigate a maze of other cars all looking for the same thing.  Communists will look at such a sight and declare that the consumerism of Christmas is evil—and vile.  But a capitalist like me sees people buying things for other people as gifts and somebody who made all these items benefits from the products offered in the exchange.  There are so many little things to buy and sell that the economic strength—the potential strength of America is on full display during Christmas.  I love the audacious displays of lights, I love the smell of food from the many restaurants, and I love the long lines and crowds trying to buy items for someone during December in America.  I love all this activity because they are all signs of economic stimulation—the products of somebody’s thinking mind realized in the form of a product.

When Chick-fil-A has a line around the drive through selling their chicken sandwiches, that restaurant chain is the direct result of Truett Cathy—a person I admire greatly.  I consider every one of his chicken sandwiches to be a miracle of modern capitalism.  I love them, I love eating at Chick-fil-A, I like the fresh flowers on the table, the supplier of the chicken, the lettuce that is always fresh, the juicy tomatoes, I love Chick-fil-A sandwiches and the quality they exhibit.  They are the result of Truett Cathy’s idea generated from his mind under the merits of capitalism.  I love book stores, I love Bed Bath and Beyond, I love Best Buy, I love J.C. Penny.  I love Target.  I love Chilis restaurant, I even love Charming Charlie’s.  I love seeing all these places slammed with business during the Holiday Season.

http://www.truettcathy.com/

Making money is not a dirty word.  In business it is like winning an Academy Award in the entertainment industry—it’s a sign of respect for a good job done.  Money is the exchange that brings value to the endeavor.  When a company makes money, it has won an award for doing a good job.  Walmart is often criticized for exploiting workers in China, and its tendency to drive down prices for consumers.  The Walton family is enviously looked upon as corporate greed in the worst extreme by jealous rivals—but the fact remains that Walmart’s success is the money they’ve made—it is the capitalist equivalent to a job well done.  And as for China, what jobs would be created in that communist country if not for exports to The United States?  Walmart’s success brings work to the people in China who need it.  Jobs are not created from trees, they have to actually arrive out of a thought that somebody has for bringing a product to market, and somebody has to be that market.  Walmart brings lots of products to market in a way that makes them affordable to the average person.

I see business as a creative enterprise, not as a stuffy old game full of meetings, flights to have meetings, and meetings to have meetings over lunch, dinner, and more excuses to have meetings.  This is often the result because the proper focus of the reason for business has become lost over time due to people like Bill Maher.  In business, engineers, architects, machinists, truck drivers and a host of other people from the top to the bottom have an opportunity to create something that had never existed before.  In business, the joy is not in making money—it is in the creation of a product.  Making money is the reward for doing it well—but it’s not the reason.  I love business because it’s a creative enterprise—it is the product of somebody’s mind.  Business is good—because it’s artistic in the purest sense of the word.  People like Maher see artists in people like Picasso and Shakespeare but those are only one kind of artist—the other kind are people like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Truett Cathy, and many others who created somethings from nothings and made money as a reward for doing so.

The term “making money” is an American concept because under capitalism that’s what occurs when the product of a person’s mind generates an invention from nothing that is then bought and sold generating money (value) that wasn’t there before.  When I went out for Christmas shopping with my wife I saw a lot of people “making money” and it made me happy for them in a similar way that it makes me happy to see films get Academy Awards.  It is nice to see people succeed at things.  Businessmen who are good make money from nothing deserve respect not ridicule.  They bring about products that did not exist before and the world is better for it.  Patented designs, new ways to manufacture goods, streamlined production lines, are all aspects of American business that “make money.”  Making money is not bad—it’s good—it’s very, very good!

What nobody talked about during the death of Nelson Mandela was the fact that the former president was a communist which world leaders with their feet in the world of Socialist International are all well aware of.  Mandela showed that a communist leader could be a charismatic and likable person the world would cherish.  For global communists still hoping for a world united under the banner of progressivism, Mandela represented their hope that others will follow in his example.  But what a businessman sees about South Africa through their art of making money is a gross failure.  South Africa may have had fairness and equality among blacks and whites, but how were they making money?  Where are the latest cars coming out of South Africa?  What about airplanes?  What about food?  What about great literature?  What about soft drinks?  What about movies?  How about jet engine building technology?  What have the South Africans done under the communist leadership of Nelson Mandela—economically?  The answer is nothing—or next to it aside from some diamond exports.  South Africa like most other countries in the world who have failed to embrace capitalism fully, suffer because they do not make money—but instead wait for money to be given to them from somebody who has already made it.  Because they fail to understand this basic premise, they suffer needlessly and must live their lives as second-handers to the creative enterprise of business people who made the products they are seeking.  This relationship might cause anxiety, and jealously—but it doesn’t change the nature of the issue.  Fairness does not trump productivity when all things are considered.  Fairness is important to the human race, but not at the expense of economic activity.  When a country makes money—it helps more people as a direct result.  Fairness and equality does little good if everyone lives in a cardboard hut and is waiting for a food truck to arrive from a capitalist supporting economy to feed them.

The hatred that Bill Maher and his progressive kind share against business is just the kind of thing that destroys the essence of Christmas—not just the religious aspect of it—but the commercial which is uniquely American.   Economic activity is the sign of a healthy country, and it is good to see so much activity going on during the Christmas Season.  Business people are not villains, the way Maher has attempted to portray them.  They are artists whether they know it or not on the front of a creative enterprise—the art of making money which is validated as successful or not based on how much profit is generated from the effort.  Instead of being celebrated as the hope for mankind, they are vilified by progressives, communists, and socialists as impediments for equality.  But what those same progressives never reveal is that the only way the world can be truly equal is if everyone is equally poor—like they tend to be in places like South Africa.  Likely during the Holiday Season in South Africa there is as much activity in the entire country as there was at just the shopping complex I visited with my wife over the weekend.  The reason is clear, yet never discussed—because in America artists even make money as business people, whereas in South Africa they have to wait for someone to dig it out of the ground, or bring it to them on a boat.  And that is not the path to prosperity for any nation.  The cause of economic improvements………..growth, of closing the gap between rich and poor is not more regulation, but less with more artists in business to create new things that can be bought and sold.  Then and only then do more people prosper, thrive, and live.  Because economic stimulation comes directly from the creative enterprise of business, and the money they make for the benefit of everyone.  

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The Hollywood Club of Progressives: John Stossel’s exploration into why entertainment is so politically left

Not all that long ago in the not so far away land of Los Angeles I gave Jennie Garth and her children a private bullwhip demonstration much to their delight and fanfare, when a question about George W. Bush’s presidency came up.  Jennie is the former star of Beverly Hills 90210 where she played Kelly Taylor.  She’s done other things, but she will always be known for her work on that popular Fox television broadcast during the early 90s.  The Bush question was related to the American policy in Afghanistan and was an invitation to “vet” me of my political beliefs—which I made very clear.  Prior to the discussion I was the star of the party—the “expert bullwhip handler” from Cincinnati, Ohio.  After the discussion people stayed politely distant as the politics in Hollywood is standardized to the far left.  Many actors and actresses like Jennie in one on one discussions agree with Midwestern logic—but in a town where projects are “green lit” based on political affiliation—stars wanting work, or to have the opportunity to appear on television and radio to promote their work must toe the line of liberalism with a religious-like fervor.  To say that one supports something that George W. Bush did as president is like saying that global warming is a myth, poor people became that way of their own making, or labor unions are filled with communist sympathizers—or that God is making baloney sandwiches for his many mistresses in the next incantation of Mt. Olympus called Heaven.  The statements may have truth to them or be completely rhetorical—but because they take on a religious quality—are taboo to even speak about in the light of day—especially for those who want to work in Hollywood and make the kind of money that only  that industry produces for essentially being paid spokesmen for progressive causes.  This was a very good topic that John Stossel recently covered in the following video segments.  The show was very excellent, very true—and paints a rather clear picture of the problem in Hollywood.  All these clips should be watched.

Ayn Rand warned of this infestation of Hollywood by communist insurgents in the 40s, 50s, and 60s with her Screen Guide for Motion Pictures that was put together with the support of people like John Wayne and Walt Disney.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.   These days nobody calls them communists primarily due to the McCarthy Hearings—but the new term is progressives.  If there is any doubt on the matter, read that Screen Guide written by Rand in 1947 and the situation becomes quite clear.  When I was visiting with Jennie it wasn’t out of desperation to work in the industry.  I personally love Hollywood and the filmmaking process—I love the art that has come to human culture through film—but I’m an old Hollywood kind of guy, a John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks, Walt Disney type—not the new age of Hollywood that Jennie represents.  I was invited to the table of Hollywood a few times because of my talents—with the little show for Jennie Garth being the last time.  But the cost of that invite is to sit on your beliefs—like most actors do—and go with the flow like the paid mouthpiece that they really are as actors.

Actors are paid to say and do what shows up on a written page.  So it is not hard for them to become spokesmen for causes that are progressive when their paychecks depend on it.  It’s a game in Hollywood that the participant must be willing to play—and that deception ends up directly in the living rooms of nearly every American home through magazine tabloids, entertainment oriented television, or some other form of trivia.  I saw a day or two ago that Pam Anderson known for her platinum blond appearance and large breasts was now going to color her hair into a brunette.  This account actually made top news on Yahoo over stories like the impending budget crises in Washington, or the further failures of government health care.    That’s how powerful Hollywood is, and how it has the ability to shape our culture.

Stossel’s work on this issue was particularly good even for him.  I have watched Stossel’s reporting for years and used to watch 20/20 just to see his hard-hitting reporting.  This is a topic that affects nearly everyone in the world because of the power that Hollywood has over the human being with its trivia producing factory.  Some of that trivia I like, some of it I despise—and so do most actors—including Jennie Garth.  Away from the cameras and all the tabloid photographers who follow her everywhere—she is just a mom who watched my whip performance with the same bright-eyed wonder that most people experience when they see it.  Like me, she and her celebrity friends love old Hollywood and the romance of that era which is so wonderfully captured in Disney’s Hollywood Studios amusement park in Florida.  But they know what it takes to get projects off the ground in the modern Hollywood, so they usually keep their opinions to themselves and do a bit of acting to sell their projects to investors—and a hungry public.

When Stossel gave Harrison Ford a rough time for his rainforest public awareness piece as being hypocritical because the Indiana Jones star is a very dedicated pilot who has 7 airplanes of his own—in private Harrison Ford and Stossel are likely to have many more similar beliefs than opposite ones—Ford likely sees the hypocrisy when he lends his image to a “green friendly” cause—but he’s an actor and can justify it to himself by taking one of his big planes to get a hamburger just to even things out in his head.  There’s a reason Ford moved to Wyoming and built a ranch—it was to be away from the constant pressure to put on a mask for progressive causes and to actually relax—which is nearly impossible to do in Hollywood—where politicians seek desperately to have their photos taken with celebrities to bolster their image.  As a box office juggernaut even Ford has to play the game to get work in Hollywood, and for him a little rain forest message is no skin off his back if it keeps him on the invite list—because after all—who is against the rainforest?  Even developers are pro rainforest—because if they are all cut down—what will those people do for work.  Lumber companies tend to be some of the greatest conservationists—they actually replant trees so that twenty years from now they can cut them down again.  Trees actually grow; they are not a finite resource.  Plus they eat a lot of the emissions that are given off by Ford’s airplanes.  So it’s a win/win situation.

Stossel had some interesting ideas on why Hollywood was so liberal, and I think there is a lot of truth to them.  But he’s only scratching the surface on the cause.  Actors and actresses like Jennie Garth are paid to play someone else, so it isn’t difficult for them to put on their acting hat and take up a cause for the cameras when they are told to do so. They might say in private during bullwhip demonstrations away from cameras, producers, and money men what they really think, but when it’s time to act, they do—and in Hollywood it is progressive causes that keep actors and other entertainment professionals employed.  Rather, it is the labor unions that most entertainment professionals belong to which sets the standard of liberalism.  That is what an actress like Jessica Alba has in common with a machinist at Boeing in Seattle—they both belong to labor unions with a fundamental communist outlook at the world marketplace, and they will bend their belief system around the way they make money for themselves. Most machinists working at Boeing are solid blue-collar truck driving Americans—who love to watch Chuck Norris and Clint Eastwood films—of rugged independence.  But when it’s time for a union vote—they meet at the union hall and rant and rave about the inequities of management versus the worker—or otherwise the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie—the roots of the behavior are in communism imported into America through the labor unions—setting up shop in the entertainment industry just as Ayn Rand warned—who was a screenwriter herself working for Cecil B Demille prior to the infestation.

Communists wanted Hollywood as an obvious strategic platform to project their philosophy of global equality to the entire world—and they came through the back door of the labor unions.  The result is that people like Jennie Garth become the gate keepers of the next generation of Hollywood hopefuls.  After our get-together and my comments in support of George W. Bush the warm reception I had in Hollywood went cold quickly.  Flying into LAX the reception was warm, the dinners were frequent, and company was robust to say the least.  Civility ruled the day and the rest of my meeting was cordial—subtly so.  But when I left Los Angeles that time the car that picked me up at the hotel had nobody in it but the driver—unlike when I arrived.  I was treated well, but uneventfully dropped off outside the airport as promised—but nothing more.  When I arrived home, phone calls were no longer received, emails unanswered and the trail had gone cold on the projects we were working on.  A stunt coordinator who had introduced Jennie and I told me nearly two years later—“no offense—but you’re too much Cincinnati.  There’s a reason they call them ‘flyover’ states.”  It doesn’t matter that Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, and George Clooney are all from Cincinnati—what matters to Hollywood is that the Midwestern charisma is kept, but the acceptance of progressivism is advanced.  Failure to advance progressive causes means a failure to work—even for Steven Spielberg.  Spielberg would NEVER come out in favor of a future presidential candidate like Rand Paul, or even Ben Carson—because in so doing, the industry would turn on his projects and his reviews would be terrible.  He’d be blacklisted in a worse way—through the critical appraisal network which can cost a production company millions of box office take.  Just look at what happened to Jerry Bruckheimer after The Lone Ranger.  The safe bet is to stay tight-lipped and hope that people learn something from their films—such as in the movie Lincoln where it was obvious that Republicans worked on behalf of freeing slaves and Democrats wanted to continue the practice.  Spielberg did this film while trying to help Obama bolster his image with private advice.

Shortly after that incident I decided to start this blog because I figured that as things were, I wouldn’t do any work for Hollywood anyway—at least during this progressive era.  So I might as well be unique and make my opinions about things known.  I knew it would cause me to become blacklisted in certain business and entertainment circles, but so what.  I have other things I’m good at in life, and I can use those things to make money—I don’t have to dance in a monkey suit for progressive causes just so my projects can get funding—which is all the liberalism in Hollywood is really about.  The labor unions keep progressivism alive for the benefit of the communist roots that was injected into Hollywood prior to the start of World War II.  And it is those labor unions which keep Hollywood radicalized and liberal for the benefit of Socialist International and other global organizations intent to finish the spread of global communism to every nation on earth.  It is because of that game that even mentioning George W. Bush in Hollywood is a dangerous thing to do, but to speak about Nelson Mandela—the great pacifist of South Africa—and communist—will lead to bottles of wine, and escorts back to the airport—and returned phone calls even if a person lives in Ohio.  Often people—especially actors—shape their opinions about things not around their actual beliefs—but in what fills their bellies, and pays their bills.  And in Hollywood where the opportunity to make millions of dollars with lifelong security is at stake—many people will alter their personal beliefs for the trade of financial security—99.999999999999999% of the time—I just happen to be one of the .000000000000001 who won’t.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Lunch at Bravo! Cucina Italiana: Capitalism and Galactic Starfighter

  There were a couple of really nice days in Ohio during the normally cold month of December where many of my peers went out for a few rounds of golf.  I was invited to more than one of these games—but I declined because I had a different game that I wanted to play—one that I am thoroughly obsessed with.  During this past week The Old Republic released it’s most recent release to their MMO game which my wife and I play together and that update was a space combat simulator featuring PVP action called simply enough Galactic Starfighter.  Since it came out on Tuesday–by Saturday I had shot down hundreds of opponents in dog fights through floating ship yards in a capture the flag type of game scenario—and I have been having a blast with it. It is full of detailed attributes which are boundlessly applied to multiple strategic circumstances and is a lot more fun than chasing a white ball around on a golf course with the object to knock it into a hole.  To begin to get a grasp of the level of detail, and learning curve needed to play the game have a look at the link below which features some of the basic weapons, upgrades and ship types utilized within the environment. 

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/11/swtor-galactic-starfighter-ships-and-components-guide/ When I play these kinds of things with hundreds of other real players I can’t help but make some basic observations about those players which sustain many of the comments I make in political and economic articles of a serious nature that are worth noting.  Galactic Starfighter for me is a well executed science experiment confirming the merits of capitalism and why nations should support that system of economical means as opposed to socialism.  The answer is clearly exhibited in the popular BioWare game. 
I was amazed while playing that during the queue up screen where live players sign up for a mission to fly against opposing players, I would have thought that it would take a while to find 12 real life players from each faction to load up.  There are two factions in The Old Republic, those of the Republic and those of the Empire.  The Empire are statist types who are big government advocates and love the power of collective force to impose their will upon everyone else.  Think of the Nazi regime, Stalin from the U.S.S.R. or the Obama administration—they are very much like the Empire in the game The Old Republic.  The Republic of course is very similar to the original idea of a Roman Republic most currently experimented with in The United States.  In the game scenario of The Old Republic the Republic are the good guys and are part of a rebellion to stop the rise of the Empire who are the unequivocal bad guys.  I of course play as a Republic player.  My wife and I won’t even consider playing story lines in the game that involve the Empire.  We are clearly aligned with the Republic faction ideologically.  If something like the Republic was not an option—it is likely that I wouldn’t enjoy the game so much—but because it is, and reflects my thoughts about things in the real world, it is immensely exciting for me to fight on behalf of the Republic in a space dog fight scenario meant to capture and maintain control of specific strategic targets. I would think that there would be lots of people who want to play as Republic players as they are the good guys, but that such a flight simulator would struggle to find Empire players—NO—the average queue up time was about two minutes.  Of course there were lots of Republic players lining up to fly, but there were equal numbers of Empire players as well.  In fact, sometimes it appeared that the Empire side had more pilots than the Republic side.  For this to happen there would have to be thousands and thousands of people online across over six servers wanting to play the game at all hours of the day.  The queue up time was the same at 3 AM in the morning as it was at 9 PM, or noon.  And of those players, they were equally split under their own free will right down the middle ideologically.  There were thousands of people who were attracted to the role of the Empire.  They willingly wanted to play the bad guy—which was interesting in and of itself.

When I was a kid and we’d play cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians, or any game of good guys against bad guys—all of which public schools are trying to outlaw these days—there were fights with my friends over who would be the good guy.  Everyone wanted to play the hero and nobody wanted to be the villain—very few did anyway.  The people who did find themselves wanting to play the bad role were often the kind of kids who came from broken homes, had troubled childhoods and lived in homes where their mother worked and were often home by themselves a lot.  They couldn’t identify with the kids who had mothers who were always home, were generally loved by their parents and knew it.  The bad guys had power to impose themselves on others and that was attractive option to kids who had daddy issues—mommy issues—and genuine social insecurities.  I never played a bad guy.  I can’t even think in such terms in a role play scenario either as a kid or a grown up adult playing The Old Republic.  So it was rather stunning to see so many players who not only wanted to play for the Empire, but they were proud of it.  The funny thing about the whole experience is that Galactic Starfighter treats players who struggle through the dogfights—which are often very intense—with two forms of currency—requisition, and fleet requisition.  With that currency upgrades for pilot’s ships can be purchased and this incentive is enough to send most of those pilots into countless hours of combat so that they can get paid the requisition currency they have coming to them.  I found myself playing the game for an extra two or three hours finally turning the game off around 4 AM last night just so I could earn enough requisition to purchase concussion missiles with long-range target lock for 10,000 req.  And I wasn’t alone—there were hundreds of people doing the same thing who had played for 10 to 12 hours straight just to earn some virtual shielding, proton torpedoes, engine boosts, and armor increases.  The reason that the BioWare game of The Old Republic is successful and MMO games like it is because they offer “rewards.”  The game designers know that the human being will do just about anything for the prospect of profit, and when they have to earn it—they value it.  Galactic Starfighter would not be a fun game if everyone received the same currency no matter if they won or lost their engagements.  And if the game did not offer incentives for players to purchase ship upgrades so that they could have an advantage over another player—the game would fall flat on its face with boredom.  It’s likely that nobody would want to play, and the few who did would not be renewing the queue every two minutes with fresh players spontaneously wanting to dog fight opponents all over the world.

The game environment as I’ve pointed out many times of a MMO based endeavor is a microcosm of capitalism.  The more rewards offered, the harder people are willing to work to get them.  In the real world women get their nails done for the same reason that pilots in Galactic Starfighter paint their ships different colors—to show that they worked hard and have achieved some level of success.  When a young home owner buys a lawn mower and spends all day of a summer Saturday working on their yard, they are caring for the product of their hard work.  They worked hard to purchase a home, and they want to show it off to others.  That is the power behind capitalism.  If Galactic Starfighter were a socialist game, all the ships would be the same, none would be better than another.  All players would be forced to be equal.  Players also wouldn’t be able to win—so there would essentially be no point in even playing.  Since there is nothing to work toward, there would be no reason to risk anything and try to pit your skills up against another person.  There would be no conflict, no violence, but there would also be no activity to generate any production.  The game would be boring and uneventful.    Lucky for me, Galactic Starfighter is a wonderful celebration of capitalism in the most pure form of the word.  If any economist of the typical Keynesian school of thought wants proof of how flawed their socialist theories are, check out Galactic Starfighter at 3 AM in the morning anywhere in the world—and the evidence of capitalism’s superiority will be clear.  When Keynesian economists decided to tamper with the economy artificially with regulation, they discovered that there were fewer incentives for people to try to produce anything.  In the game environment of Galactic Starfighter the production is a vibrant world where combatants try to kill each other with specially designed ships and augmented modifications looking for a competitive advantage.  The result is activity—in the case of Electronic Arts and BioWare—money spent on their product so players can experience such a thing.  The fact that there were so many Empire players and Republic players wanting to play against each other every two minutes is a testament to the economic activity generated in the game.  As to the Republic and Empire players, one craves freedom and liberty, the other tyranny and terror, they seem to represent the same kind of voting preferences currently at play in politics where half the country voted for Obama, the other half against him, or half the voters support school levies, the other half does not—the demographic of the game between good guys and bad guys is clearly evenly balanced—startlingly so.  The Old Republic is not struggling to attract players to the Empire faction, and in my opinion if all was right in the world, it would be.  So it has been easy for me to fly against the Empire players and yell at my monitor in joy when I blast them out of the sky.  It has been tremendously fun to tear the crap out of them with my Strike Fighter and long-range concussion missiles.  As I tore through the fuselage of hundreds of enemy craft, I thought of Lakota levy supporters, Obamacare, and labor unions—and my score increased dramatically.

      I had lunch with a few of those golf friends who took advantage of the nice weather on Wednesday to play and I ribbed them about how less dramatic it was to knock a ball in from 15 feet for Birdie, than shooting down 50 enemy craft during several hours of play on the video game Galactic Starfighter.  Those same friends questioned why I had no Fantasy Football picks for the last several months, and the answer was that I didn’t find it interesting to randomly pick players from different NFL teams and hope they do well to provide me with points.  I like to provide my own points—not to passively rely on somebody else to provide them, so I don’t enjoy Fantasy Football even as a recreational sport that wastes too much of my time and thought paying attention to whether a player from a team that is not the Buccaneers had a good day on the football field.  They gave me a quizzical look as our food arrived at Bravo! Cucina Italiana–the Lobster Ravioli Alla Vodka  as the weather outside had changed from spring like weather to a dramatic snow storm.  “So what do you think about while you play that game of yours,” one of them asked genuinely.  I replied that it was a more active endeavor than passive ones where other people determined your outcome, like a football game, or gambling, which many people tend to consider entertainment.  I added that when I play Galactic Starfighter not only do I scratch the itch of a time gone by where I would have loved to have been a fighter pilot during World War II, before all the stupid rules the FFA has today, and that game gives me a feel for that kind of activity.  It also makes me wonder why we don’t have shipyards in space, similar to what we have in Norfolk, Virginia building battleships and carriers, or the Boeing facility in Washington making airplanes—in space creating space stations, and deep space transports.  One of the battle zones in Galactic Republic takes place in a Kuat shipyard and there are several half-built Star Destroyers floating around in various states of construction.  Just the previous night I chased a poor soul into the superstructure of one of these things and blasted him with so much fire that he turned out of my targeting reticule right into a giant support beam ending in a fiery crash.  You don’t get that playing Fantasy Football. 
By the end of our meal all the guys swore to me they were going to go home and log on to play.  I gave them the login information and how to find me there—but nobody showed up.  The snow came down intensely and everyone went their separate ways after that.  Once they returned home, away from my “vivid imagination” as they call it—everyone snapped back into their usual mode of thinking.  They planned their next golf games in preferably warmer climates and got ready for their Fantasy Football picks on Sunday, and I spent the rest of Friday well into the early Saturday morning playing The Old Republic: Galactic Starfighter.  The game is a perfect representation of why capitalism works over Keynesian economics and degrees of socialism.   The pilots playing Galactic Starfighter with me have as little interest in the terms of modern politics as I do in Fantasy Football.  They only know that they want to shoot and kill someone and earn requisition for the ships in their possession.   But the comparisons are unmistakable, and the explanations are valid—Galactic Starfighter is a game that proves how effective capitalism is over all other forms though valid experiments.   The current MMO marketplace is the finest modern example of capitalism anywhere in the world—and I say this on the eve of the big Pratt & Whitney machinist strike in Hartford, Connecticut—which will happen on Sunday after this writing.  America still builds airplanes better than any manufacturer in the entire world—but the socialism of labor unions is threatening that domination—purposely as the international unions behind these strikes truly want to bring progressive reform to America and end United States domination of aircraft manufacture.  Knowing those kinds of things, it is quite delightful to attack the Empire in the fictional Old Republic and take out my wrath there while the snow falls in abundance outside of Bravo! Cucina Italiana and Fantasy Football is on everyone’s mind—as the world spins helplessly out of control toward an abyss that could have been avoided—if only people opened their eyes to see it coming.  To cope with that frustration I play Galactic Starfighter.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Fairfield City Schools Ignores Voters: A new form of slavery through public education

The excessive arrogance and result of the public education monopoly can best be summed up with the Fairfield City Schools bond issue which just failed recently in the November 2013 election.  The vote was close, but after a recount it held and the tax increase was defeated.  But the school simply declared that they would put the issue on another ballot six months later in May of 2014, when fewer people were thinking about elections.  Their not so subtle message to the tax payers of Fairfield City Schools is that they can get their money from the tax payers, and will eventually no matter how many times they must put the issue on the ballot.  State run schools like Fairfield, Lakota, and Little Miami operate as a monopoly so tax payers have no choice but to put up with the antics—and lack of respect that these administrations have for the communities they reside in.  In the case of Fairfield—“they” want new school buildings and have already made plans for the money they don’t yet have.  

RELATED: Fairfield school bond issue fails, triggers recount
MORE: Will you be asked to pay more for your schools?

The school district was pushing a 2.62-mill bond issue so it could move forward with construction plans on those buildings.  The bond issue was designed to pull $19 million from the state of Ohio to help with construction of new schools. The bond issue was intended to generate $61 million for the project.  Most of the media covering the issue simply covers the symptom of the problem, but avoids the problem because of the controversial nature of doing so.  The 61 million pound elephant in the room is the source of that controversy—that voters turned down the tax, the “state” is ignoring those results and is imposing upon the residents of Fairfield another vote—then another—then another—then another until it passes.  This happens because Fairfield City Schools is a government monopoly no different from a license bureau, the IRS, the NSA, or the Executive Branch in WashingtonD.C.  The State acknowledges that the administration at Fairfield wants new school buildings, so the government monopoly has set up a system to implement the acquisition of the needed funds by hook or crook. One way or another—the voters will be defeated eventually and the school will gain the ability to rob their desired money from the community they reside in—by legal means ordained by the “STATE.”

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/fairfield/recount-starts-tuesday-in-fairfield-school-bond-vote

Channel 9 at least covers the stories.  If they hit any harder they would be black listed by the institutions in covering the feel good stories that make people happy—and view the local news, like the story of the Lakota band performing in the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving.  Or the Fairfield football games which tend to unite a community behind the common cause of public education.  It is too difficult for them to do a report about how the schools are using the poor children as public relations chess pieces for the ultimate goal of raising taxes and imposing themselves upon the communities that are forced through monopoly rule to support them.  The implications of such admissions require courage, and a change in how society educates its children—and nobody is ready to deal with that. So the crimes continue to be committed, and voters are ignored, abused, and disrespected in every way possible.

For Fairfield schools to propose before the official count was even final from the previous election that they will pursue another tax increase in May of 2014 is an arrogance that can only come out of a monopoly that views the tax payers as their personal slaves.  There is no gentler way to put the issue.  It’s not slavery in the classic sense with plantation owners and human beings placed in literal chains—but the same basic ideal is at play here—property owners are chained to inefficient government schools by law, and beaten financially not with whips—but elections until the product of their labor is forcefully confiscated for the benefit of the State.  The tax payers who voted NO in the last election—will be ignored and forced to the voting booth until they give up—which is no different from beating another human being with a whip on a plantation until they comply to the master holding the whip.  If any reporters reading this disagree—explain the difference other than the typical progressive framing of the slavery argument to advance discrepancies of race relations.  Slavery isn’t about the color of a human being’s skin—it’s about what kind of shackles control the behavior of other human beings.  In the classic case it was actual shackles—in the modern sense it is virtual ones—those owned by banks, politics, and the collective will of democracy.

Is it any wonder that voter turn out is so low?  People see how the game is played.  During the last Lakota election, it was a numbers game.  No Lakota Levy had defeated three previous attempts, but eventually people just stopped showing up.  Most people figured—“what the heck.  If we vote it down, they’ll just come back in May with another attempt—or August, or next November.  They’ll never stop until we give them the money—so why even show up to vote?”

That is exactly what the “State” wants people to feel.  “They” want their subservients—the tax payer—to know their place—to know that the beatings will come until they submit because there is no place else for them to go.  If Fairfield residents decide to move from their homes to Lakota, Mt Healthy, Mason, Lebanon or anywhere in Ohio, they will be greeted with the same oppressive system of public school financing—the same limited choices—and the same beat downs during every election.  So the only option available to tax payers is to submit to the authority of the State and the whims of the school board backed by radical unionized government employees.

If it’s not slavery—then what is it?  What better way is there to describe such a system?  There isn’t one, and the mainstream media really doesn’t have an answer to the problem either.  Since children are used as extortion pieces, the media compromises and focuses on the feel good aspects of public education instead of the root of the problem which is the slave-like relationship the tax payer has with public schools like Fairfield.  The intention of an election is to let the majority determine the shape of their community through a democracy.  When the tax payers voted NO on the 2013 levy, they indicated that they rejected the proposed 2.62-mill bond issue.  They decided through an election that they did not want new school buildings.  Yet, Fairfield, since they didn’t get the money decided that they’d simply put the issue on the ballot a few months later and try again rather than revise their plans.  The will of the voter was ignored and the State backed school imposed themselves upon those tax payers with the gentle reminder that the tax payer works for the school; it is not the school that works for the tax payer.  The relationship is one of slavery where the tax payer is forced to provide the effort of their labor to the school regardless of whether they want to or not.  When a vote is ignored—which is what is happening—the indication from Fairfield and the state of Ohio which supports that public institution is that the institution is the master—as the tax payer is the subservient.  There is no other way to view the situation.  It’s as bad as it sounds because the literal meaning of elections that are manipulated or ignored is that the State is in charge of every life that feeds it—and that relationship is best explained as a master living off the effort of its slaves.   Everyone who pretends otherwise is helping the system continue to abuse the people suffering under the tyranny of injustice known throughout the public education industry monopoly represented here by Fairfield City Schools.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The American Romeikes: If only the United States Supreme Court will protect them

State run schools have proven to be detrimental to the human psyche and should be abolished as a form of education.  Yet in the world today, it is the most dominant forms of education there is.  The danger in them is not so much the quality of the teachers, the pay, or even the aspects of volunteerism they tend to use as a mask for their real activity within communities—but it is what they teach.  There was a reason that China sought a partnership exchange program with Lakota schools in my local community.  CLICK FOR REVIEW (Read the comments of Dean Hume from the Spark Magazine on that article, and the situation becomes extremely clear).  The reason is that both country’s schools are run by state government—China is a communist country, Lakota is a state-run school in freedom loving Ohio within The United States, but both education institutions teach essentially the same type of thing to students—submission to the state and the authority that constitutes government structure.

The Romeikes, a German family who are devout Christians, alarmed about what their children were learning in German schools decided to come to the U.S. to homeschool their kids. In Germany, homeschooling is illegal, so the family was granted asylum in the United States during 2010. But the former teacher and labor union supporter President Obama and his administration of doom decided to appeal that ruling and the family lost their protection.  The case marks a remarkable move by a sitting American president—a direct attack upon a family that represents most of the type of people who settled America as immigrants in the first place for the same reasons—in an attempt to flee the destruction of their hopes and dreams for their children.  Obama does not care about the many illegal aliens coming into America and the crimes they generate, or their trend to become attached to government subsidy, and other destructive byproducts—but he took the time to single out a family that wanted to flee Germany to homeschool their children in The United States.  To even latte sipping prostitutes, school levy supporters, and mild-mannered progressives—this should send out alarm bells.

The Romeikes could lose custody of their kids if they go back to Germany because of the Obama administration. Thankfully the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to take up the case as the Obama administration was quick to declare that the Romeikes are not eligible for protection in America because homeschoolers are not recognized as a social group eligible for protection.  This Romeikes case has within it the heart of most of America’s modern problems—that individuals are not recognized by government as relevant—only groups of people—and that is fundamentally wrong, misguided, and destructive to everything it means to be an American.  The Romeikes under the American Constitution through granting asylum should have more power or at least equal power to the SEIU or AFL-CIO unions, but the argument that White House lawyers are making in defense of government schools all over the world is that the Romeikes are required to yield to the collective opinion of the masses, because they are not affiliated with a group.

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report-bret-baier/2013/12/03/all-star-panel-german-familys-fight-homeshool-kids-us

This is why public schools are vile temples of terror as they encourage collective submission to democracies ran by idiots—instead of instructing the value of individuals to take charge of their own lives for the betterment of entire civilizations—public schools teach subservience, collective welfare, and yielding to authority—not American traits.  It is not enough to drop a child off at school and hope they learn something—because often what they are learning is vile, evil, and disgusting by the standards of people who still have them.

Most reading this are the products of public education.  There are surely good memories associated with the experience of their “school days” and bad ones.  When I was a kid there was a song that was pretty new called “School’s Out For The Summer” or something to that effect by Alice Cooper.  I used to play that music so loud that we had to roll down the windows to keep from blowing out our eardrums when my friends rode in the car with me.  I specifically remember a time on the last day of school at Lakota when I realized that I was free of that place for an entire summer—I had a car, a job, and a whole future ahead of me, and I was traveling 110 MPH down the Old Beckett road which is now Union Center Blvd with that song roaring at full blast.  The residents up on Beckett Ridge could hear the music coming from my car out of the valley nearly as clearly as I could inside my car.  It was one of the best moments of my life—a small wink of time when things are totally clear to the conscious thoughts of the waking world.  I know why I was so happy, and why I was driving so fast.  I hated school—I hated every bleeding moment of it—I hated the smell, the look of the buildings, the teachers, the authority figures—I hated everything about it.  I knew even at my tender high school age that the place and what the teachers were teaching were things I didn’t want to know.  They were teaching me to be dependent when all I wanted out of life was independence.  The music, the speed, the lifestyle I was living was all about independence and it felt good to break the speed limit, and the social norm for music levels to celebrate being free of that dreadful place—a palace of shackles to limit imagination and hinder intellectual growth.  They teach you in school what to think—not how to think.  There is a tremendous difference.

Some of the worst arguments I’ve ever had with family members outside of my marriage was when my wife declared that she was going to homeschool our children because of a disagreement we had with Mason schools when they wanted to teach sex education to my fourth grade daughter.  Of course they sent home a release form, which we rejected, and the black listing began.  We were expected to sign the form without question and when we didn’t, trouble erupted.  My wife used to volunteer at Mason schools and was loved by the principles, the administration and all the teachers—until she said no to the sex education.  Things likely got out of hand because the school employees saw my wife as one of “them” and expected her to fall in line behind the collective.  Well, for people who think I’m an “individualist” they have not met my wife.  She once quit her first day at McDonald’s as a teenage girl because they told her where to stand at the front counter.  Not a good idea to give her any kind of—“instruction.”  She does what she wants, when she wants to do it—to this very day, to this very hour, to this very minute.  She wasn’t welcome in the school as a volunteer anymore; she was harassed by known student drug dealers who came to our home to harass her and my daughters while I was gone to work.  The fire department began following her around everywhere to the grocery store, post office, and especially the bank.  They’d get in line in front of her and behind her and talk about “bitches that just wouldn’t play along” and had nothing to do all day long but “be neurotic,” a shot at her for being a housewife in the traditional sense.  They never addressed her directly, just talked around her, about her situation avoiding any direct threat or legal implication.  The unions had coordinated the harassment through their network of compliant parasites all trained in public education to just do what they were told, and they were told to harass my wife for not allowing our daughter to be taught to put a condom onto a dildo in the fourth grade.  The Mason police department gave us personally 50,000 reasons to despise them with their continuous harassment that went on for two years.  The situation was so bad I approached the mayor of Mason at the time for relief, but none came.  Instead of complying with the pressure we withdrew our kids from school and taught them ourselves to an onslaught of pressure from family members who thought we were crazy for trying—and unqualified.

My kids learned more in this period of time than all the years up to that point, or in the years after. We were teaching them things in the fourth grade that no school would even think of—such as why the earth had an elliptical orbit around the sun and why Edger Allen Poe was so much better of a writer than the modern-day John Grisham.  I was able to teach my kids during this period about literal pornography and intellectual pornography which is what they would see at the grocery story at the check out lines with all the magazine headlines selling sex, panic, and weight lose—which obviously wasn’t working very well for most people.  This period of homeschool benefited my children in such obvious ways that it was clear that there were some very bad things going on in public school evident by the differences instantly noticed.  Public schools like Mason, and the school my children graduated from at Lakota was destroying the process of thinking, but they sold themselves to the public as institutions of thinking—and clearly were doing the opposite. They were teaching non-thinking—they were teaching compliance to authority—and nothing more.  My children returned to public school for a few years but ended up graduating nearly two years early by taking online classes condensing their junior and senior years together.  They couldn’t wait to leave a brick and mortar school for the same reasons that I drove 110 MPH down Beckett Road on the last day of school playing rock music.  While both my children had their graduation ceremonies conducted by Lakota—they were in Europe learning how the world really worked—already living their lives years in maturity ahead of their classmates—which is still true.

The Romeikes know the same thing, and I feel sympathy for their struggle.  I know how hard the system comes down on people who do not comply because I’ve experienced it first hand.  I agreed to leave Mason by my wife’s request.  We sold our home for a nice profit and moved to something better in the district I grew up in of Liberty Township.  My agreement with her was that since we bought some property that gave me elbow room, I would not leave again.  The next time I went to war with the police, the firefighters, and the teachers like I did in Mason, I would not retreat—ever.  When they came for blood like they did in Mason, I’d hang them by their feet in the trees around our home like Christmas decorations, and that has been the standing policy for the last 15 years.  In my twenties I wasn’t sure what I could and couldn’t do when the highest authority in town was questioned.  In my thirties I figured it out.  The secret that nobody talks about is that there is a major offensive advocated by the education industry to process the minds of the human race into a kind of gravy that can be spread over their social reforms.  They hate individuality with a passion and are at war with logic.  The antics written about here centering on the Lakota levy are nothing compared to what my wife and I went through in Mason after we decided to homeschool our children to save them from premature sex education classes.

The Supreme Court has an obligation to stand up for the Romeikes.  They are the kind of family that made America unique—and I want those kinds of people as neighbors—even friends.  I want to see those people at the grocery store, and at a park. I want to pass them at the gas pump.  They look to be good people who should be free of tyranny and have the right to turn on the lights of their children’s minds away from the shackles of state-run schools in Germany which these days are virtually identical to Lakota, or Beijing, China.  They are all state-run schools advocating compliance to authority—and are menaces to human thought.  The Obama administration is doing to the Romeikes much the same as what the union brothers of the fire department and police departments of Mason did to my wife and me, only on a larger scale.  The international trade unions after all look out for each other and they see anybody who posses a threat to their hive collective to be dangerous—and in need of attack—ruthless attack with no mercy or recognition for the individuals involved.  For the Romeikes the only chance they have to keep their children free of a state-run education is The United States Supreme Court.  But now because of Obama and his administration of left-wing radicals dangling by the puppet strings of labor unions—the Romeikes may not even be able to keep their family together.  The Supreme Court will not only decide whether or not the Romeikes can free their children of a tyrannical public education, but whether or not they can even stay a family—which we all know is the ultimate goal of progressivism—the destruction of the family unit.  It will be interesting to discover how the Supreme Court rules.  There is a lot at stake for not just the Romeikes—but for all of us because that ruling will set a course that not only America will follow, but the world.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The Wonders of Jeff Bezos: How the FFA and other federal agencies hold back the world

What I enjoy most about playing the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO game online is that the environment is so vibrant.  There are interesting robots co-existing with many life forms freely, flying drone droids, and interstellar flight between planets that a player can embark on.  The worlds and their options are full of cool new technology, and wonderful concepts that point to the kind of world we could have in America under open capitalism.  As I watched the Sunday news over this past weekend displaying the pro Street Car people in Cincinnati struggling to keep that old technology of public transport viable, I couldn’t help but think how ignorant, and backward it was.  Street cars were the premier form of transportation when few people had personal cars, and electricity had just been invented—at the start of the progressive era.  For progressives, the Street Car is the symbol of their movement’s beginnings, and the love of that era resides exclusively in such sentimentally.  Nearly at the same time that the nightly news was running the Cincinnati Street Car story CEO Jeff Bezos from Amazon.com was dropping a bomb on 60 Minutes showing the future of package delivery, a personal drone that can deliver packages directly to the doorstep of a residence with the simple click of a button.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/01/how-amazon-aims-to-revolutionize-old-school-package-delivery-one-drone-at-a-time/

Bezos is correct when he stated to 60 Minutes that the biggest hindrance to the new delivery service is not technology, but the government through the FFA.  It will be the government which will hold back Amazon’s newest innovation, not the process of innovation itself.  But this is an old story.  The government wants street cars which take them back to the start of their political power—the progressive era of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.  Government could have never created the kind of delivery system that Jeff Bezos did.  If not for Bezos the United Postal Service would still be hand sorting most of their mail the old fashion way paid for by a stamp.  Because of Bezos I can order just about any book I desire ever printed in the world and have it delivered to my doorstep within two days—and that is a tremendous gift.

Most of the purchases I make regarding entertainment come from Amazon.com.  I prefer to see the packages arrive on my door step as opposed to the pain in the ass of driving to get things at an actual store.  I love brick and mortar stores, but when it comes to making a purchase, I rarely ever buy something from an actual store.  It is purchased on Amazon.com because of the options they offer, reliability of service, and the convenience of the whole process.  With this new proposal of Amazon Prime Air if I need something that Amazon.com has in their inventory, especially business related items like toner cartridges, circuit boards, or even ram memory, I could click on the Prime Air delivery method and have that item delivered to my place of business within 30 minutes and that is a huge.  That is less time than it takes to drive to Staples and back if an IT type of situation arises during the business day.

Of course those in government don’t understand why anybody would want to be in such a hurry.  They think people should wait a few more hours to ride a street car as opposed to driving a car, that flying by air should take two hours of prep time before the flight because of the TSA for “safety,” and that the old postage service ran by the government should continue to be subsidized when UPS and FedEx are so much better—and more reliable.  Government doesn’t care about speed because their paychecks don’t depend on it.  Government wages are stolen from tax payers often against their will—so there won’t be much sympathy from the FFA over Amazon’s new proposal.  Look for the warning videos coming out by the government admonitions about the Amazon bots running into little children and cutting them into thousands of pieces, or drones falling out of the sky and damaging property–the federal government does not want Amazon shipping packages in such an innovative fashion.  Individual employees working for government of course will, but the general philosophy of government does not.

For twenty years I have been swearing by Paul Moller’s M400 Skycar which does exactly the same thing as the Amazon Drones, except they haul people instead of packages.  Moller is about 70 years ahead of himself as society has not been ready for his invention.  It will take years of science fiction–video games, novels, television entertainment and an older generation of old foggies who want stupid street cars and concrete highways to die off so that inventions like personal flying transportation can mature into the main stream.  CLICK TO REVIEW.  That’s why I play video games instead of spending my spare time in the real world—because the real world is too slow for me.  I don’t want the restrictions of what the FFA offers, or anything else coming out of government.  The propellers on the Amazon drones are only as dangerous as the little toy helicopters that kids can fly inside a house and could hit a human being at full speed and have no impact on their skin.  But the FFA will surely use the exposed propellers as an area of concern hindering Amazon’s implementation of their plan.

The one variable in this whole endeavor is Jeff Bezos himself.  I’m a fan to say the least.  He is the kind of person who carries the world on his back in the classic Atlas way.  He is an innovator and a wonderful example of a generally good person.  He’s charitable on his own accord, and he’s a capitalist—he’s a class act and the kind of person every American should strive to be.  He is smart to not attack the government directly.  He handled the 60 Minute interview wonderfully placing his ideals out to the public in the way that Walt Disney used to—with epic fashion.  I enjoy 60 Minutes as a group of good reporters who do generally honest work, but I don’t normally watch them as I’m usually too busy.  But after the epic Bronco game versus Kansas City, I gave it a chance because of the Bezos story, and I’m glad I did.  It might have been one of the most important news broadcasts I will see in my life time because of what such a revelation means.

Folks, I have told you here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom about cures for cancer, I have told you about regenerative growth for tissue, I have told you about all 11 dimensions known to physics, and the potential of personal air transportation on a larger scale, and now here are these Amazon Drones, a reality today only hindered by government regulation.  I have told you as recently as two days ago about the potential of Zero-point energy—which means free electricity for everyone—everywhere.  I have told you about the benefits of Thorium power and a host of many other topics.  I have also railed against public education, colleges, and politics with a fury because it is those things which stand in the way of mankind having the kind of inventions that Bezos is proposing.  Government is not trying to help society, it is killing it.  Bezos can’t say such things because he’s a billionaire and the IRS and many other regulatory agencies would crack down on Amazon.com faster than lightning during a summer storm if he did.   The way people like Bezos keep the looters at bay is to put money in their pockets and shut them up—which is a dirty little secret nobody wants to discuss in the light of day.

Meanwhile, as I wait for all the progressive looters of government to die off, and or run out of money—I’ll just continue playing The Old Republic where I can have all those things right now in a fantasy environment online.  When I play those games I don’t have to wait for the FFA to decide after 10 years of deliberation that the Bezos concept for Amazon is “safe” enough, because by then the propeller technology they are using today will be outdated in favor of something else—something even more reliable—like anti-gravity demonstrated through The Hutchinson Effect.  My anger at government is that they are just too damn stupid, and too limited in their thinking.  They are slow, lazy, and have the intellect of infants without the initiative to learn.   They are slugs to innovation and keep the world from being what it could be as decided by the free market.

Amazon.com led by Jeff Bezos is one of the most successful companies in the world and is a creation of American ingenuity.  It wasn’t invented in Russia, China, Japan, or any country in Europe.  It is the by-product of innovation, capital, and will-power that rose to influence quicker than government knew how to stop it—or rob it blind.  Because of who they are, and what they represent to every human being on planet earth, and their political neutrality, they have the best chance of getting their drone program through the FFA.  The Amazon Drones are the gateway to the future, and it was delivered to America’s doorstep on 60 Minutes to the eyes of the entire world.  Soon, with a lot of effort behind Bezos and many millions of dollars of money thrown at stuffy politicians and government looters, Bezos has the best shot at making something actually happen which is very, very exciting.  But what he is doing for Amazon.com now is something that a country functioning from pure capitalism would have already had twenty years ago, and something that the FFA will surely hold up for another ten—for no other reason but their own stupidity.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Millennium Falcon Spotted in England: First impressions of Galactic Starfighters in ‘The Old Republic’

Reliable sources state that the Millennium Falcon has been sighted on the outskirts of Pinewood Studios in England, built at a secret location for the upcoming filming of Star Wars Episode 7.  This is exciting news for people like me who have been following the construction of an actual full-scale Falcon outside of Nashville, Tennessee by Chris Lee and his team of devoted model builders.  The sources are reliable because many of the production team on this latest Star Wars film, unlike those from the past, are Star Wars fans, and their excitement seeing the actual Falcon has been too much to keep quiet about.  As I’ve covered here many times, The Millennium Falcon is one of the greatest symbols of freedom that the modern human race has.  I would say that the time I saw the actual model of it at a Smithsonian exhibit years ago was nearly a religious experience for me.  I took hundreds of pictures of it at a time before there was digital photography.  It is one of the most recognizable images in the entire world, and that status will be solidified over the next decade.  The Millennium Falcon is currently the most photographed fictional item anywhere; it also appears in the most fictional literature being written about in over 200 novels and countless comic books.  It is an icon of the Star Wars franchise and it appears that Lucasfilm in close association with the Disney Company has built a full-scale Falcon to film with a seamless tracking shot where the characters can actually walk onto the ship from the exterior with a steady cam rig and up into the interior in one take—just to show off that they can execute such an ambitious task.  The Falcon can then be taken to a Disney Park to be placed on permanent display with a similar strategy as Disney has used on The Black Pearl from the Pirate of the Caribbean films.  The Millennium Falcon is similar to The Black Pearl in that they are both pirate vessels from their respected franchises.millennium-falcon_00288478

There are a lot of very real things to worry about in the world such as the debt ceiling issues, the funding of the government, Obamacare, the collapsing Social Security situation, declining wages, a wrecked moral compass on the world stage, but it’s time every now and again to enjoy the things that are good.  For me, the release of The Old Republic’s Galactic Starfighter game has been a long time and coming and is something I deeply cherish.  The news about the Falcon hit the news wire about the same time as Galactic Starfighter was uploaded onto The Old Republic servers and has given me over the last 24 hours countless pleasure.  It is a wonderful game, which is rather complicated and takes some getting used to.  But it is the best of the best in my opinion, a nice tribute to my favorite space simulator of all time in X-Wing Fighter from way back in the 90s, and the more modern Xbox version of Star Wars: Battlefront.  Galactic Starfighter plays very slick, has lots of things going on the HUD display, and is fast—which is just how I like things.

In my 2004 novel The Symposium of Justice one of the subplots was a story called “The Return of the Flying Tigers” where a group of air combat simulator enthusiasts took to the skies in converted M400 Skycars to attack a Washington D.C. taken over by the United Nations causing a second Civil War in America.  The video game players went up against Apache helicopters and other military vessels during raids over the beleaguered American capital.  Playing Galactic Starfighter with a host of other live players who are quite good gives the sense that such a thing is very possible.  The skills that must be established to be good at the game are fundamental combat strategies that would be taught in any military academy, and it is fun to see that out of all the entertainment options available to the players of the game, that they prefer to fight it out with other pilots in a free world where rewards are granted for heroics, bravery, and daring.

In the real world the attributes that make people good at Galactic Starfighter are penalized, so it should come as no surprise that so many people are fleeing the real world to live in a fantasy one—so to preserve their concept of valor.  Galactic Starfighter only opened on December 3, 2013 to subscribers.  The game goes live to everyone else in February—so I feel privileged to be able to fly with so many people on a game that has so much early interest, and enthusiasm.   It gives me hope for tomorrow to see so many people at least in their minds yearning for the nobility of aerial combat.

It is nice to take a break from the world’s problems and sign in to a place where things make much more sense—a world where risk still earns rewards and everyone doesn’t live in a padded room for fear of becoming hurt.  The action in Galactic Starfighter is fast and furious—and highly addictive.  I am hooked.  It is the perfect homage to the kind of stories that have spawn off a saga born from The Millennium Falcon.  It is also why when the next Star Wars film is finished, that millions upon millions of fans will flock from the far reaches of the world to see it in person when Disney places the vintage ship into one of its parks.  I’ll be one of those millions, because of what it means to those who find games like Galactic Starfighter to be as essential as food, water and sleep.

In preparation for the start of the new flight simulator on The Old Republic I ran one of the very hard rail missions—the Heroic level 7 runs with my XS-Freighter.  Those runs are nearly impossible requiring a pilot to take out several scout ships, run a mine field, and take out a capital ship while navigating an asteroid field at a very high-speed.  I can’t recall a time when my heart has beat so hard as it did during this mission, and when I cleared it with a perfect score, I was ready to burst with excitement.  That’s how much fun these flight simulators are, and now with Galactic Starfighter how much better a great game like The Old Republic is with the new addition.  The very first thing I did on the morning of December 3, 2013 was upload the new addition.  And the game hasn’t been turned off since……………

Here is the official press release from BioWare:

12.03.2013

Early Access to Galactic Starfighter Digital Expansion Available to Star Wars: The OldRepublic Subscribers Today

AUSTIN, Texas – Dec. 3, 2013 – The journey to become a legendary Starfighter pilot begins now! Today, BioWare™ a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), and LucasArts granted early access for current subscribers to the new Free-to-Play Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Digital Expansion, Galactic Starfighter. The second Digital Expansion introduces 12v12 intense Player-vs-Player (PvP) free-flight dogfighting and fierce factional battles as the war between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic explodes into space. Players will compete and advance to earn experience, in the form of “requisition” to unlock awesome new weapons, powers and abilities to customize their ultimate Starfighter.

“We are so excited for players to experience all the incredible new content in Galactic Starfighter, while still gaining additional XP and credits to give their ground game characters a boost,” said Jeff Hickman, Vice President, General Manager of BioWare Austin. “Free-flight space combat is a feature the fans have been asking for, and Galactic Starfighter really delivers on that feeling of heart-pounding fast-paced dogfighting action that you expect in a Star Wars™ game.”

Anyone who becomes a subscriber will be able to jump right into Galactic Starfighter and become part of the factional combat and free flight PvP experience (no minimum character level requirements apply). In addition to gaining early access to Galactic Starfighter, subscribers will receive exclusive rewards, including custom paint jobs, two pilot suits and two titles (“Test Pilot” and “First Galactic Starfighter”). Preferred Status Players* will be granted access to Galactic Starfighter on January 14, before the Digital Expansion becomes available to the public beginning on February 4.

Star Wars: The OldRepublic is a Free-to-Play, award-winning MMO set thousands of years before the classic Star Wars movies. Players team up with friends online to fight in heroic battles between the Republic and Empire, exploring a galaxy of vibrant planets and experiencing visceral Star Wars combat. Now players can experience the complete storylines of the eight iconic Star Wars classes, all the way to Level 50 without having to pay a monthly fee. The Free-to-Play option complements the existing subscription offering, providing greater flexibility in how to experience Star Wars: The Old Republic.

For more information on the Digital Expansion: Galactic Starfighter, please visit www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com/galactic-starfighter. Join the conversation by visiting the official Community Blog, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages. For additional press assets, please visit http://info.ea.com.

What is it?

Galactic Starfighter is a 12v12 PvP free flight space shooter. At its core, it is all about coming as close as we can to recreating the incredible experience of space combat as seen in the Star Wars™ movies. It is fast, furious dogfighting action where you get to choose your style of play by selecting the Starfighter that is right for you, be it Scout, Strike Fighter or Gunship (or all of the above!), blowing up your enemies, and then using Requisition (experience) to upgrade and customize your ships.

From the start, we wanted to make sure that we nailed the feel of “free flight” Star Wars space combat, so we’ve taken great pains to get the controls just right. It is flat-out fun to simply fly your ship through the battle zones we’ve created. The Scout feels zippy and maneuverable, the Strike Fighter nails the all-purpose combat role, and the Gunship is really, really good at picking off targets from long-range then relocating to the next cover point to keep out of harm’s way.

Finally, there are a TON of options for customization. And I’m not just talking about re-painting your ship (though I recommend that you do!). I mean swapping out your weapons and engines and SEEING the actual ship change shape, while altering your stats and abilities. I’m talking about equipping Treek as your co-pilot and hearing her chirp at you when an enemy is locking onto you with missiles. PLUS repainting your ship, recoloring your paint job, customizing the color of your blaster bolts and your engine trails. Beyond the visual and audio customizations, Major and Minor components plus Crew equal a HUGE number of stat and ability changes that allow you to tweak your Starfighter to your heart’s content and the Major and Minor components all have full upgrade paths as well.

This is a HUGE update to the game and we expect you’ll be playing and enjoying Galactic Starfighter for years to come.

But Wait, There’s More!

I want to take a moment to point out that this feature is just getting started. What do I mean by that? Well, for Early Access we will have two very distinct battle zones and one game mode plus fourteen unique Starfighters with all of the customizations mentioned above, but that’s not even our full Launch content! Galactic Starfighter is much more than that. In February for our full Launch, we add a new role (the Bomber) plus 10 more Starfighters for a grand total of 24 ships to customize and take into battle. Add to that an incredible new dynamic Flashpoint that is level and role neutral called Kuat Driveyards which ties our ground game story directly into the space PvP action with a new Starfighter area on the fleet and you begin to see that full scope of what we’re delivering.

Taking it one step beyond, we have already laid out significant plans for Space PvP to support it far into the future, so there will be regular releases of content to keep our Starfighters happy for a good long time to come. As with everything in our game, we will be listening raptly on all available channels for YOUR input to shape what Starfighter becomes as it evolves. Thank you for your ongoing support. It means the world to us.

Blaine Christine
Senior Producer

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Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com