Category: The Delphi Technique

We’re on an Island of Reason Surrounded by an Ocean of Corruption

30 billion dollars a week is spent on just interest toward the national debt and congress cannot make a decision to cut a fraction of that out of the Federal budget. Local school boards, county commissioners and city councils are making last-minute deals to get public worker increases in before S.B.5 becomes law. Darryl Parks of 700 WLW calls it correctly when he proclaims that those of us that find large government corruption wrong, are on an island surrounded by treacherous water we cannot drink, filled with creatures hidden from view that want to swallow us whole, and it is daunting that for as far as the eye can see, there is only an endless expanse of such peril.

Meanwhile, President Obama is going on vacation to Rio in South America while nothing less than the fate of the world hangs in balance.

• Japan is in need of United States help from its catastrophic devastation at the hands of a tsunami.
• Congress, the Senate and the White House cannot agree on the proposed budget cuts and are only buying small increments to keep the government operating.
• Socialist labor unions are threatening order all over the United States.
• States and cities are going bankrupt all over the nation.
• The NFL is even shutting down over “collective bargaining!”
• The Middle East is undergoing destabilization.
• Fuel prices are rapidly increasing.
• Food prices are rapidly increasing.
• And the immigration violence on the border is terrible while the pacifists feed the discontent with rhetoric like this:

Those are the people in the water that are making up the policies we are all facing. Pacifists for profit is what they are, because in their pacifism, there is much profit among the corrupt politicians that are squandering away American resources for their own gain with little regard for the moments past their last meal just as a shark shows to the fish it has just eaten. The mindless, bloodthirsty shark has not a thought for tomorrow. It only eats, and eats, and eats for today.
Here Anthony Weiner shows his vast ignorance by grandstanding on such small issues as the defunding of NPR, missing completely why the funding was cut.

Weiner and company forget that even John Boehner is standing behind the cutting of the Joint Strike Fighter which has the engine built-in Boehner’s district at the GE facility. Everyone is making sacrifices, but those stories aren’t being reported, only the emotional ones that are equivalent to pouring blood in the water to attract the mindless sharks. All that kind of discussion is lost to the foolish sharks like Weiner and his friends that only look at the meal in front of them and circle the island of logic, hungry for more food to feed their mindless lives of living just one more day on the spoils of others.

Meanwhile, small little school districts like Lebanon rush to take care of their union friends while turning with the other hand to ask for more blood from the taxpayers to appease the sharks by tossing more food into the water to keep the beasts at bay.

Darryl Parks is right. We are all on a lonely island, the last sane vestibules of continuation that must fight an ocean of predator’s intent on immediate, selfish destruction in order to restore our nation to a life of thriving unification that can only occur when the predators no longer threaten our existence. We are truly engaged in a battle of the mindless sharks and the beings of reason for the advancement of civilization.

And Barak Obama is in Rio looking at string bikinis. Hey, I was happy to elect Alan Keys as the first African-American president, but nobody wanted to listen to him.

Allan Keys wouldn’t be in Rio right now if he were president. That much I can promise. Why didn’t Jessie Jackson and the African-American community support my man, Allan?

Because the sharks want their food to swim right into their mouths, they don’t want us on an island planning our escape, or the taming of their wild, bloodthirsty ways.

With Obama, the socialist minded, tribal leaders of the African-American community got what they wanted, a man who would turn his back on his nation, play golf, and go on vacation to South America while the world burns, and the sharks are free to eat.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Sheep and the Lion: How much is public education worth?

There is a term called “going down the rabbit hole” that is used to understand abstract and deep concepts. Depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go can determine your resolve for understanding a problem. This article is a “big picture” view of going down a rabbit hole more than some people are willing to go in regard to public education and the value it has for society.

The following radio broadcast from Doc Thompson is very good, and comfortably sits on the edge of that rabbit hole, where even this much people are unwilling to go. But I offer it as an alternative to the text that follows. Or I offer it to help the rest of the text go down more easily. But beware, if you want to maintain any illusions about education, then turn away from this page immediately. I talk about some of my personal experiences again, partly because there has been much speculation. But the opinions will not be comfortable for the reader wanting to continue “not seeing.”

The first thing that teachers assume of school reformers is that they must not have done very well in school, or that they had a hard time in college, or that they are simply social outcasts that have some vendetta against public education. What they fail to consider, because such a thought is outside of their “bubble” of experience is that there is a portion of society that think for themselves and have seen the scam for what it is, deciding to not take part in the whole process.

In my case, I decided long ago that the system didn’t work. It never worked for me because I’ve never been happy in a follower position. I’ve always questioned authority, my entire life. In fact, in kindergarten, I missed several of my recesses for arguing with the teachers. It became apparent to me early on that education wasn’t so much about learning arithmetic, language, and art, as it was about learning how to take direction.

I have had great success in life by being a leader. To date, the only thing I’ve received from family, friends or “others” is a workbench vice I inherited from my grandfather when he died. Money, or money gained from property sales passed down through my family have never found their way to me, and on purpose. I resist any relationships where I take a passive role and where a gift can be used as leverage against me down the road.

Now to many people who may seem extreme. However, if you want freedom, you must have freedom of such predatory relationships. And, unfortunately teachers, by design, form a predatory relationship with their students the way the system is currently set up.

When I was younger, I will admit that there was a blood bath that followed in my wake. I spent a lot of time in court, in fights with other students, and in general trouble with officials in school. Much of that trouble came simply because I refused to submit to an authority figure. That’s it. I never looked for trouble. I just didn’t like authority figures and since socially, submission of some kind to authority is required, I was in for a constant barrage of trouble which found me.

It has never occurred to me that I was in the wrong for taking this position. It doesn’t take a brilliant mind to sit in one of the many parties that I attended and see the failure of public education. Many of the kids back then when speaking of Pink Floyd would proclaim, “Man, you have to be wasted to understand The Wall.” At those parties stoned classmates would watch MTV with awe as “We Don’t Need No Education” played displaying a bunch of kids being processed in a factory, faceless and being cast into a meat grinder. Such a metaphor was very similar to my own thoughts, but I never did drugs and I certainly wasn’t wasted. I went to parties back then to pick up girls that were, but I did not partake in that behavior.

If you want to understand a culture, study its music, and you will learn a lot.

You would think that many parents would have wanted their kids to spend their time with me. After all, I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t use curse words, I helped people when I could, I was polite and well spoken. But I was also defiant, inquisitive, and perpetually skeptical. In fact there were two rules that people riding in my car had to live with when I was 16.  (And note that I did not have a shortage of people wanting to spend time with me.  It was the parents that didn’t want their kids around me.)  First, there was no smoking allowed. Second, we would not play Pink Floyd on my car stereo, because I understood the stuff all too well and thought it was depressing to meditate on such things, where many of the youth back then did. One of my best friends back then was told by his mother and father to stay away from Rich Hoffman. He’s not the kind of kid I want you to be friends with.

His mother’s preferences were the drug induced kids from the neighborhood, whose parents she knew. My friend became addicted to drugs and was lost eventually, but not because he was friends with me. If he had been friends with me, he wouldn’t have done drugs, or stolen from people. He wouldn’t have contracted a variety of STD’s and probably would have entered adulthood with his head on straight.

My head has always been on straight, even when authority figures wanted me to believe otherwise.

The next question that arrives is that why would authority figures wish to convince a person that they are in need of care. The answer to that is easy. Authority figures are perpetually in need of justifying their existence. Since their lives and careers are embedded in the lives of others, they are terribly insecure of people who don’t need them.

College wasn’t any different. When I was there, young people were more interested in the social aspects of college life than the scholastic and the whole thing seemed like a money pit to me. Professors were seeking to drag out studies that could be done in weeks into events that went on for months so they could charge $10 per credit hour or more. The charge alone for books was an obvious scam. That’s how it appeared to me, and I still feel that way.

I’ve lived a life full of education, but also free of authority figures. And I’ve had success in life when I became old enough to be sought after as a leader, because that is my natural impulse. I don’t wake up in the morning looking for power or influence. But when I’m in a collaborative effort with others, I am only comfortable in a leadership role. That’s my nature and I understand it.

So I understand the frustration people who have committed, and submitted their lives to such things as to my motives and their speculation of my back ground. The idea of cutting all ties into their lives that are corrosive and manipulative is a completely foreign concept to them and something they cannot fathom.

Even knowing that the public education system was seriously flawed, I sent my kids anyway. My wife always liked school, until she met me, and she felt our children should have school in their lives. I argued that the kids could learn faster if they took a more independent route, but I listened to her opinion on the matter. The result, my kids breezed through school. I taught them not to take the whole thing too serious and not to submit to any authority and they navigated through the experience very well without all the pitfalls that most kids go through regarding peer pressure and social-climbing.

The reason for this explanation is that there is a story in mythology that I learned a long time ago that I think about a lot. It goes something like this; a lion was separated from his parents and was discovered by a herd of sheep. The sheep took the lion in and raised it for many years.

The lion grew to full size and was roaming around in the herd with the other sheep where a pack of lions hunting the sheep saw the lion and called him over whispering.  “Hey, what are you doing? You’re roaming around with the sheep.”

All the Sheep trained Lion could say was, “Baaaaahaaahaaa.” Because his instruction came from the sheep all his life, he didn’t know any better.

The lions took the Sheep/Lion to the river and said, “Look at your reflection. You’re one of us. You’re not a sheep. You’re supposed to eat those creatures.”

The story goes on where the Sheep/Lion rediscovers his true identity and becomes in the end what he was meant to be.

Human beings are no different. We all are lions in sheep’s clothing. It’s a cultural phenomenon indicative of authoritarian culture created when humans moved from a nomad society to an agricultural society. Europe and all its problems are derived from attempting to maintain human beings in an agricultural society, including their attempt at education.

Those that settled the United States left that behavior behind in Europe in favor of a Lion’s life in the New World and it was so important to them that they’d risk their life to have it.

My oldest daughter and I had a long talk under the stars till about 3 AM one night a few years ago and she asked me what she was supposed to do with all the stuff I taught her. After all, it’s a fine line between enlightenment and insanity. The slopes to insanity are steep if you are not within the safety of the herd. It’s not that she questioned the truth of it, but co-existence with others becomes difficult when you insist on living awake when the people around you insist on being asleep.

I told her that most of the people who think in such a way as I do, end up going insane by their early 40’s, or they become abusers of drugs in order to maintain that reality to themselves against the current of sheep, that secretly wish the safety of the herd, so they turn to chemical abuse to numb them.

“How do you keep from going crazy?”

I smiled at her, “You have to start with being grounded to begin with. You read a lot and study other Lion’s that have lived full lives and witness how they did it. You don’t abuse alcohol or drugs or sub come to other human weaknesses. But you have to not compare yourself to the sheep around you, because relative to them, you will seem crazy. The life of a sheep and the life of a lion are completely different. The sheep grazes in the field, and travels in a pack. They mate and give birth occasionally. They run away when a predator comes near and if they live to old age, they die eventually as their bodies break away. The Loin travels in a pack when they find hunting that way more convenient, but they stay solitary animals most of the time. Like most cats, they are happiest when they are alone.”

That took the conversation into a different direction, the difference between dogs and cats.

I personally like dogs. They are always happy to see you. They are intensely loyal, even when you abuse them. Cats, they only come around when they want a lap to lay in. If they get mad at you, they’ll avoid you. They never seem to sink deep roots in their owner. They seem to choose their loyalty carefully and that loyalty leaves quickly if the relationship is strained. Those types of differences can be found in people too. Society expects dogs and the loyalty of them. But some people are just cats. We might sub consciously call those types a “cool cat.” I would make the psychological argument that what the nation is experiencing with Charlie Sheen right now is that very complex. It’s no secret that public characters like Snoop Dog, Charlie Sheen and Dennis Rodman are dear to the deep recesses of the human condition. Socially those characters are rejected, but when the doors are closed and the arms of a woman are wrapped around them, the truth is revealed.

To my observation of public education is that it fails at a fundamental level. It teaches our youth to be sheep and not lions. My view is taken in the context of philosophy, and I understand that many people in our society aren’t ready for that line of thought. They want to be sheep, and they want their kids to be sheep.

So the argument then becomes one of business. Can we afford the current form of public education? No. The way the unions have structured their contracts have turned the whole funding of education into a Ponzi scheme much like Social Security. The step increases that were negotiated require higher and higher taxes to maintain the funding, and we’ve hit the wall.

One of the benefits of being a leader type is that I don’t have the burden of appeasing any group. So I can look objectively at the situation and name the problems for what they are, because I’m not looking at any part of the problem with emotion. I already think the system is broken; I am not looking for ways to justify the behavior. And I have no illusion that by throwing more money at the situation that it will solve anything. All it does is push the wall a bit to delay the crash that’s happening. It’s hard for many people to see the wall because they don’t want to believe it’s there, because public education has become for them much more than basic education services. Sports provide the possibility of college scholarships, and school social events provide opportunities for young people to “interact” and discover themselves.

Teachers that truly believe they are the saviors of society are particularly arrogant in their thinking on this issue. But much of their work can be replaced with a computer in this new century, where the computer is ironically much more personable. I don’t say that out of a dislike of teachers, which I’ve admitted that I personally don’t like authority figures, but the idea of a solitary figure speaking to a class where the weakest link of the class sets the pace is archaic.

In truth, my dislike of public education was based on that one principle. I couldn’t stand the pace of the learning. I’m a person that enjoys doing things at a fast pace. And the classroom was always just too slow for me. Now I may be the exception, but it is apparent that it doesn’t work very well for other students either. The difference is other students were content to learn how to “game” the system, get their passing grades and move on to the next grade. Most of the time they forgot what they learned by the next semester because their goal was not to learn the material, it was to get a passing grade and advance to the next level.

When you learn to be a lion, a leader in the world, you will find that your services are always in high demand, because such people are rare when they are in great need. So career worries go away, where the sheep of the world are always concerned if the farmer will feed them, or if a predator will attempt to hunt them down and kill them, the lion doesn’t concern themselves with such matters. And thinking like a lion does not mean that I automatically support a sports team like the Cincinnati Bengals.

My favorite football team is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers so when my wife and I want to go to a football game, we fly down to Tampa to watch them play. It is more practical to me to fly 1000 miles to see a good team than to drive 20 miles to see a bad one. If I’m going to pay for the NFL experience, I’m going to enjoy it, and not just do what’s convenient. A few years ago, when we were waiting for a night game to start, we were killing some time at The International Mall, which is within walking distance to Raymond James Stadium, one of my favorite places in the world. We spent half an afternoon needlessly shopping and still had some time to kill before the gates opened, so we stopped by a very elaborate booth for Rosetta Stone Software located in the middle of the mall.

The attendant at the booth gave me a head set and computer and let my wife and I play with the foreign language software for several hours. When I finished, and we headed over to the game, I realized that the way we are currently learning foreign language and just about everything in public education is outdated. That Rosetta Stone Software had made learning much more practical and interactive, and that the only reason public school did not leap into this style of learning was because the teacher unions would stand in the way of that innovation.

They’d stand in the way because public education had become more about creating jobs than actually learning. The current focus was maintaining the system along the same fashion that education had been embarking on since schools were a one room building. The only thing that’s changed is the school became larger, but the teacher at the front of the room is the same, and it is no longer as necessary.

One of the arguments for this big system is that poor students don’t have access to computers and they need a teacher to help them, because they don’t have a family to take care of them at home. This is the way the unions sell their service now and why they insist on the current costly form of education. It has more to do with social structure and social ills, than actual educational performance, which shows in the students.

It’s easy for me to see all this because I wasn’t happy with the system to begin with. But I’m happy to pay my taxes and participate if the rest of the members of my community want it. And we do pay a lot in property taxes. But when I hear schools lie to people, and I see teacher unions manipulating the situation and attacking people for questioning their motives, then it changes the argument.

To participate in a system blindly costs money, not to mention social consequences. My view of those social consequences might be extreme to many, even though privately most people agree with me once they close their eyes at night and can read their thoughts across the backs of their eye lids. But the financial burden of the public education system needs to be broken down and restructured, and unions stand in the way of that, so that is the reason for the adversarial relationship. The more hate mail and comments I receive, the more convinced I am of the lack of merit in public education.

The intent behind the name calling, and the attempt to silence any critics are to continue to ask for more money to keep a broken system functioning. As I’ve established, I am an employer, and I’ve heard every possible justification and excuse from employees over the years that wish to convince me that they are special, and that they and only they can do a particular job. After several hundred of those statements you learn to see what truth is and what fiction is. As an employer you must have an understanding of the job you are asking people to do, otherwise you are guilty of not being able to make a proper assessment, and are 100% reliant on your employees to tell you how valuable they are. And they will try, and if you don’t know, they will take advantage of you 99% of the time.

With public education, I’ve been there and done that. I learned a lot more when I finally got out of public education because the barriers to learning were removed, and I was able to attack it at the fast pace I enjoy. I have had to provide instruction to people myself, and teach, lead and assess talent, so I understand what works and what doesn’t. And I’ve had success outside the classroom. Many of the professors and teachers that I’ve known over the years fit the description, “those that can’t do, teach,” meaning that people who can do are in the world working and producing, those who aren’t comfortable with producing stay in the safe world of academia, and they teach, or they attempt to be professional students. I have known more than a few of those types and have actually given a few of them jobs much to my frustration, because they are so timid. They tend to be the type of person that will stand at the side of a pool and stick their foot in to see how cold the water is. I’m the type that will jump in regardless of the temperature so they frustrate me to no end. But it takes all kinds of people to make the world go around, so I put up with them. The question is not whether or not those people have worth. They do somewhere. The question is are they worth six figures? No!

Public education if we look at it for what it is it’s for many people an opportunity for their kid to get a scholarship for higher education. For others it’s a day care facility, because parents are busy with their lives and don’t have anywhere to put their kids while they are at work. Let’s face it and call the situation what it is.

My goal is to see kids actually learn something. I think the whole idea needs to be turned upside down and rebuilt, because as I look around, the people functioning in the world around me are failing. The divorce rate is too high. The moral standards are too low. People’s understanding of politics is abysmal. Their understanding of geography is pathetic, some people actually don’t even know where India is! Their confidence in themselves is terrible and they pass that along to their children, which raises more insecure children. All these are social failures which to me start with a failure of public education, and more money does not solve it. We’ve poured a lot of money into the situation, and it has not worked.

It is easy to attempt to maintain the status quo by proclaiming that its critics “don’t like” education, or some other loose term. It would be expected for sheep to make vicious proclamations of the lion, because deep down inside, the sheep wish they had the courage to be lions, but they don’t. All that’s left is to hurl insults in an attempt to cover the fat life of the herd animal that just seeks more and more feed to provide nourishment to its virulent existence within the confines of the barn yard. My concern is the larger issue of actual performance as a primary concern, and secondly, of the financial stability, which is proven to be not well thought out.

The old games are no longer effective because the sheep in the barn yard have noisily protested for years and now we see that they are all fat and need to be sheered. And it is my hope that once we start doing the sheering that we will find beneath all the hair that some of those sheep are actually lions, and can return to their natural state and teach others to be lions and return the nation to what it started as, and avoid a fate of a depleted, crushed Europe full of glory from some ancient time while the future leaves it behind.

Unfortunately only leader types are able to see that far ahead. The sheep are only looking at their next meal, but the big cats, the lions lay perched in trees and look out over the savanna to what is far off and they will be the first to see what is invisible to everyone else.

Education needs reformed for more reasons than one and we will have it, because it’s what’s good for America, not just those that have built lives off it.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Communist Manifesto: SEIU ATTACKS OHIO SENATORS WHILE THEY EAT!

 

Isn’t this a great quote?  Guess where it’s from, The Communist Manifesto. 

My wife and I have a secret hideaway that we like to dine at, hidden from the world and its worries.  Friday March 4th, 2011 was a glorious spring like evening complete with pouring rain, as we sat together in a cantina like setting waiting for our food to arrive.

She had been reading much about quantum mechanics and the latest theories of universal theory rejecting some of the work most recently proposed by Stephen Hawking and was discussing the topic vigorously as the aroma of our food cooking in the kitchen was overtaking our senses.  My mind however was on a discussion I heard on the radio between Bill Cunningham and Sheriff Jones earlier in the day where they were critical of Senator Jones and Governor Kasich for their aggressive support of S.B.5.   Their position is of the old Republican guard view of “gaming” the system as greedily as the Democrats over the years ever had and it is hard for some of those guys to admit it to themselves.  They are uncomfortable with this “new conservativism” and spent much of their discussion belittling the lack of political understanding of Kasich and the aggressive nature of Senator Jones, as if they hoped that they could somehow turn the tide of anger that has been building for a long time back into some manageable form. 

My mind was also on the Easy Street Café from Wednesday night where Senator Niehaus, Senator LaRose, Senator Bacon  along with several others were harassed by members of SEIU District 1199 led by Monica Moran for passage of the S.B.5 bill just hours before.   Monica stepped into that restaurant with 10 other SEIU members and began chanting at the Senators until the police had to arrive with a helicopter to whisk away the protesters. 

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/03/03/union-supporters-disrupt-gop-senators-restaurant-meal.html?sid=101

The owner of the restaurant had to endure pushing and shoving until the police came, and Moran was not apologetic.  In fact she was quite defiant saying, “The moment of discomfort Senate Republicans may have felt as a result of my expressing my opinion pales in comparison to the extreme discomfort and financial hardships that public employees will endure as a result of SB5.”

My wife and I ate our own food I thought about Moran’s statement.  I have absolutely no tolerance for bullying, and I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone brought up in America couldn’t see that the public workers using such strong-arm tactics for nearly three decades have painted themselves in this corner they find themselves in.   I find it amazing that so many Republicans are weak kneed, including Cunningham and the Sheriff when it comes to taking a hard-line on this issue, insisting on more collaboration, more political procedures, and really more of the same behavior that has delivered our nation to the precipice of destruction.

When Nancy Pelosi and her Congress under the urging of President Obama, where former SEIU head Andy Stern visited the White House several times a week, pushed through the Health Care Bill, and Net Neutrality, and the bail outs, etc, there were many in America that decided that a push back was in order.  That the bullying that had been going on for a long time had gone on for too long, and it’s time to set things straight. 

Senator Jones and John Kasich are doing what many people, me included, want.  I don’t want any collaboration with the type of people who will barge into a restaurant and shout profanity at Senators in an attempt to scare them into “proper legislation.”  That kind of behavior has no place in the American landscape.  It will take the bold actions of Kasich and Senator Jones to do the job. 

Senator Niehaus had to display boldness for removing Senator Sietz who was stalling the vote under the guise of “compromise” and many other measures to undo much of the damage that has already been done by the actions and influence of SEIU and the politicians they control.  The time for negotiation is long over; it’s been a one way street against the American tax payer from the inception of Executive Order 10988 under President Kennedy in 1962.  Since then, the unions functioning with authority have behaved like an organized crime element in our society.  And if politicians don’t fall in line they are intimidated and harassed until they change their views and therefore their votes.   Monica Moran was just reading from the company handbook and her followers truly believe they are wrapped in the flag of the United States fighting for worker rights. 

After the food was done, and our drinks were drained into our bellies, our date was far from over.  Check paid, tipped placed on the table, we left our cantina and proceeded to our other favorite spot, the most romantic place on the face of the planet………the book store. 

We usually spend two or three hours picking out our supply of books for the week, and my wife was intent to find more information on her quantum mechanical theories.  So I went to one of my favorite sections, philosophy.  There wasn’t anything new, I’ve read them all.  They did have the little blue book, The Coming Insurrection in stock which I read and despised as tripe from a bunch of French fools lost in their own elitism.   I saw a copy of my favorite book from Nietzche Thus Spoke Zarathustra which Hitler would distort under the assistance of Nietzche’s power hungry sister while her brother suffered from insanity shortly after the book was completed.   There was also a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, also written by someone who suffered a major intellectual breakdown enduring electro shock treatment to “cure” him of his thoughts.  Zen was written about 5 years later.  Great book, but nothing new there for me, so I headed to the Social Science section. 

In the Social Science section, again I have read many of them.  There is of course all of the Glenn Beck books.  Wonder why they are so popular?  They are right next to all the liberal books; in fact Ed Shultz’s book was right next to Glenn’s.  There was one copy of Ed’s book with 7 of Glenn’s book Broke.  I asked the attendant if the reason was because Ed’s book was selling like “hot cakes.” 

She said, “No, we’ve had that copy since August.” 

I asked her about Glenn’s book.

“We just got those in on Monday.  Can’t keep them.” 

I took a mental note and continued to look over the titles looking for something new.  There are all the Fox people, Bill O’Rielly, the Judge, Morris, Ingraham, all of them selling well.  They must be doing something right.  I saw some liberal books, The Audacity of Hope was there, the cover was torn and looked like it had been looked through a lot, but not purchased, and had experienced another lengthy shelf life.   What becomes clear when traveling through a book store when all the covers are slickly done by professional book publishers and editors is that Americans vote with their wallet.  Once the message gets out in the world of competition the better argument will win, and people will buy that product.  People bought President Obama’s Audacity of Hope when they thought they were reading the book of American’s first black president.  Not someone who was a mouth piece to powerful union interests.  They rejected the idea and the sales have dropped off.  Compare that to Glenn Beck’s An Inconvenient Book,published in 2007, a year before Obama’s book. 

“How often do you order this book?” I asked the attendant.  I noticed there were five of them on the shelf. 

“Once a month,” she said.  “We usually order about 10 at a time. 

My wife found me in the isle and informed me she was going to be a while.  She was having a tough time with her selections. 

I told her to take her time, that there wasn’t any hurry.  As she left my eyes fell on a book of evil, one I read years ago and there it was on the shelf with a new, hip cover designed to entice young hippie impersonators, The Communist Manifesto. 

This version of The Communist Manifesto was just over a hundred pages by the time you read through the forwards and introductions.  So I stood and read the book again while I waited for my wife over the next hour and a half.  And when I got to that last page I thought it was particularly revealing the line they chose to place there, “forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.  Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.  The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.  They have the world to win!  Working men of all countries unite!”

Suddenly the behavior of Monica Moran doesn’t seem so out of place, if you take it in the context of The Communist Manifesto.

I put the book back on the shelf and thought about what I had just read. 

The attendant came around and asked me, “Are you going to buy it?”

I gave her a disgusted look.  “Hell, no.  I have to go home and take a shower now that I’ve touched it,” I said half-joking.  The girl was a younger girl in her early twenties.  “Tell me something, does this book have any appeal to you?”

She looked at it and said, “The cover is pretty cool.  I’ve heard it talked about by my literature professor in college.  I don’t know.  I think I probably would read it if I was pressed for time and had to do a report on a book.  It’s short and would probably get me some points with the professor because of the subject matter.”

I smiled and nodded knowingly.

The girl looked self conscious.  “Did I say the wrong thing?”

“No, you answered perfectly.” 

My wife was back with an arm full of books.  “I couldn’t make up my mind.”

I just smiled as we proceeded to the counter; my mind was on what the attendant had said. 

The Communist Manifesto is a book for fools and lazy minded youth that lack true worldliness.  It’s designed for the masses because the intent is to create an insect like response to arms, to overthrow the establishment and create a communist world draped in fairness.  It’s a naïve notion born first from Plato’s Republic then glorified in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia written in 1516.  The book has power because it does two things, it’s easy to read because it’s so short, and it appeals to the lazy. 

Capitalism is for competition, but for it to work everyone needs to have a hunger for competition.  Competition brings out the best of the best, and gives those who aren’t the best something to reach for.  It is obvious that one of the imperfections of capitalism is that it leaves behind the lazy, because the lazy do not wish to work in order to better themselves and compete.  To the lazy, the corporations will always be evil entities, because they represent difficulty in competing with others that are “competitive.”  To those lazy citizens communism will always be attractive because it is far easier to hide in the masses under a collective association than to stand as an individual which is how America was founded. 

The Tea Party shows that groups that associate themselves with individuality can come together and work as a unit and function socially as the Constitution intended.  The philosophy that produced The Constitution has produced a successful country, the United States, where we have such a rich and diverse society that it is the only place in the world where all the races of the world actually work together without tribal warfare and even our poor are well off compared to the rest of the world.  The American system works better than anywhere in the world with no exceptions. 

Communism has only produced misery everywhere it’s been implemented.  Everywhere!  It is a half cocked idea created by a mad man soaked in poverty.   He pulled together information from the British Museum to construct his theory along with Friedrich Engels study on the working class struggles.  Marx was hardly a popular person.  You can tell a lot about a person based on who comes to their funeral.  Well, Marx had 11 people at his funeral.

When unions discovered that Marx’s short little book could unite the sectors of society that didn’t read much and tended to have the hobby of drinking, eating and pursuing women, the simplicity of The Communist Manifesto had a great deal of power.   This helped give rise to the Labour Party in England by the 1920’s which destroyed England as an imperial power, which was the goal. 

It should be remembered that the United States broke away from England to avoid imperial control, and our capitalism worked were England was an imperial tyrant.  The United States never sought to become an empire, which is the system Marx studied.  There wasn’t enough data in the mid 1850s to provide any data on capitalism in the United States without empire status. 

But what did the Labour Party in England do to their country?  Well, I have friends in England so I know firsthand.  Also, my son-in-law is from England, and when he found out what kind of opportunities were available to him in American, he wasted no time coming here and working his butt off so he could provide my daughter with a good life.  In England, there weren’t any opportunities for a kid his age.   The townhouses in the country are incredibly expensive.  They aren’t creating any new jobs because nobody is locating there.  It was a big deal to him to see a McDonald’s so close to our house.  He had to go to London to see one.   But they aren’t producing anything and exporting anything.  The Democratic Socialist Party, (the Labour Party) shut down the country and created the kind of European socialism that President Obama and others want to bring to the United States. 

I don’t want that in my country.  I want NOTHING to do with it.  And I want NOTHING to do with ANY unions.  Period.  They were created with socialist intent, and socialism does not work. 

Now, for those that don’t understand how I went from talking about communism to socialism, it’s because socialism is the gateway to communism.  Here are the definitions provided by http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_socialism_and_communism

” Socialism is the idea that the working class, the class that produces the profits, the wealth, the cars, houses, planes, steel, should take over and run things collectively, democratically, for the benefit of the majority (who also “just happen” to be workers too).

Communism is the idea that society should not have classes – exploiters and exploited oppressors and oppressed, and so on. ”

  • Socialism generally refers to an economic system, while communism refers to both an economic and political system.
  • Socialism seeks to manage the economy through deliberate and collective social control.
  • Communism seeks to manage both the economy and the society by ensuring that property is owned collectively, and that control over the distribution of property is centralized in order to achieve both classlessness and statelessness.
  • Both socialism and communism are based on the principle that the goods and services produced in an economy should be owned publicly, and controlled and planned by a centralized organization. Socialism says that the distribution should take place according to the amount of an individual’s production efforts, whilst communism asserts that goods and services should be distributed among the populace according to individuals’ needs.

Collective bargaining is a form of socialism that has been perpetuated by communist sympathizers.  That’s not anybody on Fox News saying that.  It’s not Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh or anyone else.  They are just stating the facts and history that is available to everyone.   For too many years we’ve allowed these parasites of philosophy to attempt“European Style” socialism to America and we’ve all just let it happen.  We haven’t taken pride in ourselves and defended our way of life properly so those groups that want to bring about socialist ideas took us for granted. 

Republicans are traditionally as I mentioned regarding Bill Cunningham and Sheriff Jones, conservatives that align themselves with other conservatives and built business and helped create laws.  They tended to be nice, God-fearing people.  But on their watch, these parasites which hold The Communist Manifesto in such high regard have reigned free from impunity.   Many of those Republicans are guilty of what they are accused of, being out of touch and spending too much time on the golf course, and they are partially guilty of letting these labor unions get out of control.  So it’s not just the labor unions fault.  Unions are made up of common, everyday people who are more interested in what Charlie Sheen is doing, or whether or not Lindsey Lohan has on any panties when she gets out of a car.  Such minds are easy to fool and they have been fooled by power-hungry manipulators like SEIU, and the AFL-CIO and the NEA .  Those unions made pay good through collective bargaining which allowed the lazy of our culture to continue to be lazy.  It allowed them to get what they wouldn’t get in normal competition.   And Republicans, the same Republicans that took a soft stance on S.B.5 let them do it because they didn’t want to think about the larger problem.  Those Republicans were lazy themselves taking for granted that the United States would always be here, and that threats to our way of life existed on foreign shores.  They took the labor movement as pests that had to be appeased and went back to their golf game.  So they are guilty too, and still are!

But the urgency we are seeing now comes from a new group of conservatives that are not looking at long political careers, golf games, and fancy dinners with powerful people.  In many cases like Kasich in Ohio, and Christie in New Jersey they are already successful and are not looking at being two term governors, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.  Be bold, and fix our problems.  If the people don’t like it, let them change things with a vote in the next election. 

S.B.5 is not Health Care Reform.  It’s actually the opposite.  S.B.5 is about ripping control from the state and putting it in the hands of communities where it belongs.  It’s not creating more central control like Health Care did.  If the passage of S.B.5. seems aggressive, well that’s because it is.  Time is running out.  There isn’t time to sit down with a bunch of labor leaders and “collaborate.”  That is how things were done in the past and it hasn’t worked.   The union strategy is to just stretch out the negotiation process until public opinion turns against the Republicans.  That’s how Democrats and unions have beaten the crap out of Republicans for years.  That’s why those idiots in Wisconsin fled to the border, because it’s their “mode of operation.”  By delaying the Wisconsin vote, the unions hope to turn the public against Scott Walker, only this time Scott Walker isn’t putting his finger in the air and checking the wind direction.   He’s doing what he thinks is right. 

So of course when Shannon Jones introduced S.B.5, and there was three weeks of testimony, Kasich knew he needed to implement his changes quickly so he can fix all the holes in Ohio.  Everyone played fair and by the process, but they didn’t allow themselves to get bogged down, deliberately.  And Senator Sietz, the rock solid Republican that asked Strickland to lead last year, was one of the Republicans from yesteryear that helped create the problem.  He helped legitimize the labor movement that is intent on implementing a new social order.  Not the rank and file members, they just want a pay check.  But the leadership is certainly after a larger political agenda and that is not acceptable.  So I am deeply proud of Senator Niehaus for not allowing Sietz to stall the vote and play politics with S.B.5. 

Timing is important.  All across this state school levies are threatening to break the backs of property owners everywhere, and once S.B.5 is signed into law, school boards will have a tremendous amount of ability to control their costs and take those levies off the ballots.  Schools like Little Miami can renegotiate contracts and become solvent again, and that’s just the beginning.

Kasich’s motto is moving at the speed of business, and that’s what he’s doing.  Let the unions put the issue on a ballot in November.  Because Kasich will have by then put Ohio on a successful path and if the voters decide to go backwards, so be it.  It won’t be because our Governor didn’t do the job.  It’ll be because Ohioans failed to recognize a threat and take responsibility for the condition of their state.   There won’t be any slack-jawed politicians to blame this time, only a preference for the status quo. 

My wife and I closed out our evening with details I won’t reveal on these pages.  But I personally stayed up till the small hours of the morning reading and thinking. 

This is a battle not between left and right, young and old, rich or poor, but of those that truly want the American way of life, and those that simply want a “kick back.”  And both sides are guilty of playing that game. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Freaks, Losers, and Malcontents: Radical Union Leaders Launch Mindless Fools to Attack Taxpayers

In Ohio we are seeing plenty of these radicals show their inability to think for themselves in protest of Senate Bill 5.  Listen to Brian Thomas of 55 KRC interview Senator Shannon Jones and Mike Wilson of the Cincinnati Tea Party discuss the merit of S.B.5.

Unions think collective bargaining reform is about revenge, or it’s some conservative conspiracy.  Yet this is what the union opposition say is happening.  A guy sent me this comment while I was writing this article.

I listen to Doc’s show on 700; he is clueless on Labor and the issues that surround labor. Unions and collective bargaining have built the middle class in this country. What you’re seeing is big corporate interest trying to tear it down. Fire, Police, Teachers and all public workers should be getting a big thank you everyday for the job’s they perform. When you have a Gov that is bought and paid for by Wall ST. this is what you get.

What does Wall Street have to do with any of this?  I’m not part of big corporate interests and I want this bill. I don’t want my tax money going to union activity. End of story. These people live in a bubble their union leaders have created for them and they all say the same thing which has no basis in reality. Unions have used extortion tactics, such as strikes, marches, protests and other radical behavior to drive up the cost of their services, and people are sick of their act. This has nothing to do with the big Republican machine. These radicals have been pointing in that direction for years, and they simply don’t get it.

But we know what they’re about, because everywhere they use the same strategy.

Look at the Teacher’s unions in Mexico this week.

This is what they are doing in Wisconsin:

And this is what they were doing in Ohio:


Listen to this guy insult Tea Party people. Is this the cop, fireman, or teacher you want living next to you?

Here’s the problem with these people. They have no ideas, little financial knowledge or common sence. They only think that if they yell loud enough, like children, they’ll get their way, because that worked in the past.

But to all you malcontents, and radicals, I have news for you. The Tea Party isn’t going away. If the Republicans like you try to blame for this does not vote on bills like S.B.5., we will replace them with people who will do the job. So you can scream, cry, stomp your feet and carry your signs, because it won’t matter. We’re awake, and we’re not going back to sleep.

This is what we’re going to be doing from now on in every state in the union.

Get used to it!

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

Progress Ohio Spin Machine Calls Senate Bill 5 Anti-Worker.

The following is from the Progress Ohio website, including the pictures. I will provide a short commentary afterward. I put it here in its entirety so more people can see how these types of people spin issues to suit their needs.  But one thing to notice as you read this, look how they assume that the reader of their comments are not very intelligent.  People who read a lot will notice right away the demeaning nature of the sentence structures.  But the members of these “public worker organizations” are typically not very motivated, and tend not to educate themselves with books.  They let “leaders” do their thinking for them.  So the press releases end up sounding like some trible council order from the village chief.   And anybody who understands the nature of the United States and it’s people, we don’t like to live in villages, and we don’t want leaders.  We want to lead ourselves.  Only the very lazy crave to surrender their freedom for the security of a “leader.”

COLUMBUS, OHIO – An overflow crowd of over 800 concerned Ohioans packed the halls of the Ohio Statehouse today in opposition of Senate Bill 5, a job-killing, anti-worker bill that would silence the voice of Ohio’s public servants. If passed by the Ohio legislature, Senate Bill 5 would eliminate collective bargaining for Ohio’s public employees and make it more difficult to attract and retain quality staff.

“Today, Senator Shannon Jones and her anti-worker allies jump-started their job-killing vendetta against Ohio’s middle class,” said Becky Williams, President of SEIU District 1199 which represents over 9,000 public sector workers in Ohio. “Reducing government, cutting taxes for the rich, and taking rights away from workers might sound good to Jones, but when you talk about taking safety forces off of our streets, educators out of our communities and leaving criminals unsupervised in our towns – it’s just not practical.”

While working under the misrepresented premise of “transparency” and “reducing the size and scope of government,” Jones openly admits that there will be no direct financial benefit to the taxpayers after her exhaustive one-year research of collective bargaining. To the contrary, a report published by Policy Matters Ohio found that “allowing public sector workers to bargain collectively reduces labor strife, reduce the likelihood of strikes and can lead to better training and higher productivity for public sector workers.”

……………………………………………………………….

This type of rhetoric is dangerous, and extremely misleading.  Their use of terminology such as Anti-worker and the such are manipulations of the basic facts.  I know many hard-working people who routinely work circles around public workers as far as quality and it angers me greatly to hear that union represented workers are “working families.”  It’s that kind of discussion that has created our bankrupt conditions that began 27 years ago. 

There will be a lot more on this later as the facts come in.  You can read more details from me that I’ve written so far at this link.

Notice how many people showed up for this event.  Those are your working families.  The reason their voices get heard and the “real” working families get ignored are because the real workers are working.  These people are just paid lobbyists.  Groups like the OEA, Progress Ohio and many others have their members take off work to participate in these lobby events, and that’s how things became so messed up to begin with. 

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

So What are you Going to Do About it? Sex, Money and Public Schools

In the face of such scandals as what is being dealt with currently at the Mason School System, and one month ago at the Lakota School System, thousands of rank and file participants within the teachers union crave to put these episodes of unpleasantness behind them. The worst thing in their eyes is for public debate to occur beyond a two-day news cycle. If a story lingers for too long, the value for the service they want to offer diminishes in the eyes of the taxpayer.

But that’s the real problem, isn’t it? For decades public debate has been limited and it was easy for spin doctors and spokesman to proclaim that “it’s just sex, these things happen in every workplace. We’re taking precautions.”

The downfall of those status quo protectionists however is technology. No longer can a spokesman tell a group of friendly reporters a controlled diatribe of manipulation intended to diffuse a crisis till it falls from people’s minds as their busy lives consume commitment to a righteous cause. Now with text messaging, and blog sites like this one, information moves freely without the control mechanism of political machines, and is why the FCC is pushing Net Neutrality.

That’s why what happened on 700 WLW February 4th of 2011 was unique as a story broke on that station throughout the day preceding a major indictment from a prosecutor’s office. It started with Sharon Poe speaking about the crises with Doc Thompson and ended 9 hours later after the indictments were announced and attorneys started to chime in with legal discussion. The story is basically this, a teacher Stacy Schuler of the Mason School System was indicted for 16 counts of sexual battery with 5 students. She is also involved in a sexual way with a separate issue involving the assistant principal George Coates. George called in his resignation on February 2, 2011. The story arch was fascinating and is captured in the video below. It is recommended that you activate the video and finish this article while listening if you are fortunate enough to be able to do both. If not, then give yourself some time. It’s a video that is 2 hours and 7 minutes long but condenses 9 hours of radio news breaking evolution over the day and is a compelling story in itself. So turn off the TV and let the video play and enjoy the theater of the mind without commercial interruption for the drama is as good if not better than any movie available to rent.

Sharon (the woman in the interview) and I have known, as most in the Mason community and in neighboring Lakota have known for some time that serious sexual allocations were transpiring in Mason. In fact I have the list of many improprieties, most of them taking place with consenting adults within the system and not directly effecting students. But the number and rank of the participants is alarming for any workplace. This teacher is just the most obvious participant because she got caught. Her actions since they involved students that posted information on Facebook and other online forums could not be quieted by the spin doctors and the info got out into the community.

Check these links for information on all the soap opera issues going on in Mason. There are several articles on those pages. Scroll down to the “Sex and Drugs for All” School Districts section to read the information. This information was published by Charles Foster Kane.

Here are the links:

http://thecincinnatusstandard.com/Whistleblower_Newswire_Friday_February_4_2011.mht
http://thecincinnatusstandard.com/Whistleblower_Newswire_Thursday_February_3_2011.mht
http://thecincinnatusstandard.com/Whistleblower_Newswire_Wednesday_February_2_2011.mht

Home for Kane’s work can be found here: http://www.thecincinnatusstandard.com/The_Whistleblower_Newswire.html

Scott Sloan came on after Sharon and had been working with the same information we all had but Scott had the guts to act on it. After he went off the air with Doc, a caller from Mason came on and defended the district and proclaimed that WLW was behind on the story and it wasn’t a big deal. WLW was in fact the only news organization running with the story. All the other outlets were waiting for the indictment to come down and reacted predictably once the story broke. That particular caller reflected a huge part of the population that just doesn’t want to deal with bad news.

It is because of people like the caller that these problems in schools have continued. They empower the perpetuation of illicit behavior in public institutions with the same careless abandon that a large portion of the population accepted the seductress explanations from former President Clinton.

The target audience of complacency which Clinton, Obama and teachers unions, along with others, speak to know what they’re doing. They hope to solicit more recruits to their thinking by encouraging public drunkenness, sexual exploits and other forms of decadent behavior because in such personalities are future apologists that won’t have the courage or fortitude to confront difficult issues when they present themselves. And on the backs of such weak souls were built the corruption we are finding in public education. In fact, as I was writing this article I received this comment from a reader which fits in the category just discussed.

Author : thompson (IP: 72.173.182.116 , 72-173-182-116.cust.wildblue.net)
URL :
Whois : http://whois.arin.net/rest/ip/72.173.182.116
Comment:
you’re nuts. Salaries have nothing do to with morality. And for the record, teaching salaries are NOT I sugges you collect your thoughts before you put them out there to be read. Hope I don’t stumble onto anything else you rant, I mean write.

That is a guy that doesn’t see how things connect. The misspellings are because that’s how he wrote it, I duplicated it the way I received it. And to respond to that guy, being nuts is to take things at face value, like he obviously does.

You see, it’s not just the sex that is going on with some of the teachers, and administrators. Or principles and assistants that think it’s acceptable to send naked pictures of themselves to co-workers on computers owned by the school. Or child pornography obsessed teachers taking pictures of kids with their shirts off in the classroom. This is about the wholesome advertising of public education services to the community to justify extraordinarily high salaries negotiated by public sector unions. It’s like most things in life, in the end it’s about money.

During the levy campaign back in September after I had made a couple of appearances on WLW the Pro Lakota Campaign had flooded the station with protest letters and accused the station of being disingenuous to teachers and rationalized my questing of the amount of wages being imposed on our community budget as hateful. Their assertion is that because of their educational background and the fact that many of them have master’s degrees that they are better positioned to teach our children and that spending more and more money on public education will yield increased results. Or in the case of Lakota and Mason, it was to keep those districts excellent by approving a tax levy on our properties. We were told, “Wouldn’t you spend just 20 bucks a month to keep your kids safe.”

However, what we are finding is that these people in public positions are just as human as anybody. And these teachers and administrators in these schools are no more qualified to raise our children than our average citizens. This whole issue comes back to the topic of wages and whether or not public education officials should be paid so much and communities should be required to supported collective bargaining agreements.

My day on this historic date started as one of my employees told me about his experience of dropping off his son at Lakota because of the busing cuts. Lakota had stopped using police to guide traffic at the entrance my employee was using as a drop off. Instead a school official named by his son as an assistant principal was directing traffic. That assistant audaciously knocked on my employee’s window and told him to use a different entrance. “You can’t pull in that lot. You have to go to the other side.”

My employee told him that they had a paid parking spot in that particular lot and he had a right to be where he was.

The assistant principal directing traffic told him again to use the other lot.

My employee asked what he was supposed to do about his paid lot, the assistant said; “you should have passed the levy.”

I have instance upon instance given to me about principles at Lakota taking active roles in creating an environment of hostility that if they occurred in my work place, I’d be obligated to address the issue before the behavior corrupted my workforce, but not in public education. They live by different rules than the rest of us. And that becomes evident when you get to know some of them.

That’s why the sex scandals in Mason are important. Even if the teacher is innocent of all 16 counts we know that there is inappropriate behavior that went on between the teacher and the assistant principal at a minimum. As a society do we put up with it, because the taxpayers are the boss in this situation? Or do we just look away? Do we just approve the next levy while the bloated, corrupt monster of public education lingers on under collective bargaining agreements negotiated under school board members trained by the OSBA to carry out to the letter policies created by the teachers unions which are bankrupting communities?

I remember specifically when Lakota threatened to go on strike in 2008. What was their sticking point? Wages. They tried the same general tactic floating the strike word around back in March of 2010. It wasn’t about kids. It was money. Watch that video here. They got what they wanted. It didn’t matter to them if the community could afford it or not.

For those that don’t want to discuss the issue of cost and whether we get the value for the money we spend, I put the blame squarely on your shoulders for the current state of things, public education being just one, but very costly issue. When I hear stories like this sex case, and again, I know there is a lot more to the story which will be revealed, I get angry. I can’t understand why stories like this wouldn’t make people angry. But I also tend to view the world from the perspective of an employer. People that just want to punch their time card and cruise through life tend to look the other way when trouble comes or when taxes are too high and harming the community.

The underlining issue is arrogance. These Mason school employees that are currently in trouble have so little appreciation and respect for their community and where the money comes from that supplies their income that they participate in these reckless sexual activities. That behavior speaks volumes of how public education views the public they serve and it comes out when they are pressed.

The ultimate audacity is revealed in the Mason spokesman Tracy Carson when she was on with Tracy Jones and Scott Sloan putting on a happy face for the Mason District on January 26th, the same day that Stacy Schuler was put on leave. No doubt Mrs. Carson will say that she didn’t know about the teachers coming legal trouble, but what kind of spokesman wouldn’t know about this story, because I was hearing about it, and it’s not even my job to know. I find it hard to believe Tracy didn’t know. The story was out well before implementing the leave and if the spokesman knew anything about what was happening in the school, she’d know about this teacher, because everyone else did.

Yet, listen to her words on WLW. Do you think she actually thought the Mason school system could contain this story? Depending on how you answer that question will determine your ability to think critically. Because the bet from these people is this, you can’t think critically even when the evidence is right in front of you.

So, what are you going to do about it?

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Yes Lakota is Misleading People: Painting over the dirt

Georgetta
voteyeslakota@aol.com
75.185.0.41
Submitted on 2011/01/20 at 11:14 pm
Evil prevails when good people do nothing. I am a good person and I am about good education. I am doing something: speaking out. Rich Hoffman is misleading people. Teachers teach children so they DON’T end up working themselves into an early grave and barely making payments on a lot in a trailer park. The good teachers will go elsewhere in order to make a living wage. Rich Hoffman raised children and his wife didn’t work. Apparently he is making too much money. Yet, I hear no one attacking him. Some of us have to have both parents work in order to put food on the table.

Georgetta here reflects many of the comments that I get from people who think just like her. The premise is this, that education is a right, they hide the actual numbers in the scribble of government bureaucracy, and if you show that you don’t support it, or if you even question their reasoning, they use “peer pressure” to shape the community to their will, just like kids on a playground. That’s the mentality. They end up sounding like children with their minds wrapped up in extreme assertions to make their points seem to carry more weight.

The first thing they do is attack you “the tax payer” and your ability to pay the increase in tax. They’ll say, “Public education was there for your children, but now that you don’t have children in the school, you don’t want to pay.” They do the same with business leaders, “We built the good schools and you provided the homes, and now you don’t want to pay.” What doesn’t get said is that as all this growth was going on, the LEA, the teachers union at Lakota, negotiated an aggressive contract in October of 2008 that was focused on wages and that contract is bankrupting the community because at the same time, indications were that state funding was on a decreasing trend. So the contract was irresponsible, and what is happening now, is the community is establishing the parameters of future contract negotiations, because we can’t trust school officials to do the job, otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten this far out of control.

These pro levy people will attempt to proclaim that nobody but them can look at the numbers and understand the situation. They sadly put out apologist groups to plead the case like what you will hear in the below interview. What they don’t want to discuss is why there is a financial crises. They simply discuss finance as if it were beyond their control. When listening to this interview ask these questions, if cutting only a million here, or there isn’t much because the numbers are so large, then why is it such a large savings that cutting busing to 9000 students will only save $600,000, then why cut busing? And how has Lakota done everything it can do before cutting busing. Did the LEA come to the bargaining table to renegotiate their contract? And how does the tax dollars stay in the district when the union spends the union dues on political candidates. One of the reasons the LEA wants its teachers to make so much is so that the teachers will want to pay their union dues without hardship. But nobody talks about any of that here. The sum of this discussion is that there isn’t an answer. These are nice parents that just want the system to work long enough for their children to get an education. Nobody wants to play the hot potato game when the music stops, and the music is stopping. All they can really do in an interview like this is paint over the dirt.

All businesses whether they are service oriented or manufacturing oriented have a responsibility to keep their costs in line. One way that businesses do that is to use the 10-80-10 rule as it’s applied to labor. That rule states that 10% of your workforce will be your typical “top” performers, and they will get the most dramatic increases, 4% to 15% depending on the situation. 80% of your workers are average, and will typically get a standard 2% to 3% increase, otherwise considered a “cost of living” increase. And of course every place of business has approximately 10% that are poor performers and they won’t get an increase of any kind. Why? Because those bottom 10% you want to look for another job, and you want them to leave so you don’t have to pay them. It gives you a chance to hire somebody that might want to compete for the top 10% percentile. If you manage things correctly, your bottom 10% are the kind of people that your competition is hiring at the middle 80%, and you want that so you can maintain a competitive edge.

What you don’t do is uniformly advance everyone in your place of business with some socialist “everybody is equal” policy like what we have in school systems, and unions advocate. That’s a disastrous concept and gives employees like Ryan Fahrenkemp time and the luxury of job security to participate in an evil deed like child pornography. I would argue from experience that if Ryan had to fear for his job, and didn’t feel comfortable hiding in the muddy 80%, he probably would have not indulged in his warped perversion while at school. He might have done it in hiding, or in his mother’s basement, but not with his students, and not with school equipment. And he certainly wouldn’t have been making 70K at only age 42 no matter how much experience he had with the amount of tenure he’d accumulated in a relatively short time.

I used Fahrenkemp as an example because he belonged in the bottom 10% and somebody didn’t do their job in the review process of weeding him out. And that didn’t happen because he was protected by the complicated process created by the OEA which the president of the LEA had been a big part of, and knew how to manipulate the system to the advantage of her members.

So I’d say to you Yes Lakota people, who say that I am misleading people. Who is doing the misleading?

I’d say you are, by telling the tax payers that the budget just “grows” on its own. That the school system had no way to deal with people like Fahrenkemp, and that all teachers are worth over 62K, and if the community doesn’t pay it, those beloved teachers will leave the district for another one.

I would say any teacher that would leave Lakota is only in it for the money, and those are personalities that I would rate low on a review, and may be tempted to put them on the bottom 10% anyway, so for them to leave would be desirable.

All the Yes Lakota people have to argue with is emotion,
• “The money is for the kids.” No it’s not, if it was, the LEA wouldn’t have threatened to strike in 2008 to get more money, and again in the spring of 2010.
• “We have to offer top pay for top teachers or they will leave.” No they won’t because the other districts are broke too and are getting ready to go through the same process Lakota is.
• “We have to protect property values by voting for the schools.” No you don’t. If taxes keep increasing that will kill real estate values anyway, tax payers in the district already pay $11 per $1000 assessment on their property.
• “I’m for education.” No you’re not. If you were, you’d keep the budget under $160 million. Throwing money at something doesn’t mean you’re for education. It means you don’t value the source of the money but want what the money can buy.
• “We have had explosive growth and must adjust to it.” Growth, like budgets can be controlled. If the cost is too high, growth will slow down, and growth will slow down because of the economy. Growth will also slow down from parents wanting to go to Lakota who aren’t willing to pay for the extra things they want, too. One of the reasons Yes People want sports and extracurricular activities is so enrollment will increase, so parents looking for those items can move to the district and participate cheaply. It’s all about job creating and getting parents used to programs that the district tax payers fund collectively. No different from colleges with NCAA programs that are nationally known for their sports, will see increases in enrollment. It’s always about increased enrollment so money can be justified.
• “The state is forcing us to all-day kindergarten.” No, the OEA lobbied to get all-day kindergarten passed, and the Republicans in the state house are getting ready to eliminate that unfunded mandate along with many other mandates lacking funding. So that anticipated requirement will be taken away from district budgets.
• “We have to spend $50,000 dollars to get the best superintendent we can get.” No, you are throwing money at the situation like you do everything else. It’s that kind of mentality that locked us into the contract with the LEA that is causing the current financial crises. Money does not equal quality. It seldom does. Money can be used to create competition, but it is useless without competition. If money is not getting you dramatic results, it is simply killing your budget.
• “Paying for a school levy keeps your money in the community.” No it doesn’t. The union dues collected by school unions are directly applied to liberal politicians that further perpetuate the bureaucratic mess creating expensive economic necessity. The OEA had revenue of over $62 million dollars in 2008. Where did that money come from? They don’t make any products that they can sell? Check the info for yourself here. http://teachersunionexposed.com/state.cfm?state=OH All that money comes from union dues, paid from the salaries of teachers that are paid exceptionally well by the local tax payers. The average pay at Lakota for teachers is 62K per year. So the money doesn’t stay in the community.

Those are just some examples of how the Yes Lakota people are misleading the good people of the Lakota District. And they will continue to treat the voters like the fools they believe they are as long as it works.

Get ready for the next levy announcement for May. They’ll do it because they don’t know how to do anything else but ask for more money.

And you Yes Lakota people go ahead and leave your comments. I’ll post them, and I’ll use them. People need to see your thoughts. For those of you wanting to see some of them, read the comments here. I am quite aware that there are many people at many levels reading all the posts I’ve put up here and you’re looking for a way to spin it to your advantage. For an example, have a look at the work David Little from Progress Ohio attempted. I’m happy to fight your sloppy facts with the truth and if you want to spin the community around and make them so dizzy they can’t tell which way is up or down, I’ll continue to prevent it, as I have. And I’ll do it because I love my community, and I want to see education continue to be an option for families in the future. But it won’t be in a form controlled by organized labor. Those days are over.

Don’t believe me; read this from your parent union the OEA, this is how bad the financial situation is. Even the union staff is threatening to strike and the union itself is participating in union busting strategies.

The Ohio Education Association and Its Goose

The executives of the Ohio Education Association sent a memo informing local presidents that if the union gave in to striking staffers’ demands, it would require an $80 to $90 dues increase per member. Such an increase would raise roughly $10 million. That sounded familiar to me, so I checked the archives and found this, in the May 8, 2000 EIA Communiqué:
Ohio Education Association in Severe Financial Straits. The last time the Ohio Education Association negotiated a staff contract, in September 1997, it resulted in a two-week strike, restraining orders against picketers, and a lot of bad publicity. That contract expires this year and it’s bad financial news all around for OEA, its members, and the staff. OEA recently informed its local presidents that the union is facing a projected deficit of $6.3 million for next year. The union is asking staff to accept benefit cuts totaling $4 million. The rest of the deficit would be eliminated through a dues increase of up to $25 per member.

“Specifically, and regrettably, we can no longer afford to sustain the current number of OEA employees at their current level of compensation and benefits and continue to provide the expected level of services and programs without significantly raising OEA dues for you and every other member,” reads a memo from OEA President Mike Billirakis and Executive Director Robert Barkley.

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2010/09/03/the-ohio-education-association-and-its-goose/

If our community is going to continue to be a “great” and “excellent” district, we have to get in front of this problem. Not avoid it by tossing more money at the problem. And the Yes Lakota people need to listen to the No Lakota People, because the solution is in good business strategy. The same tired old bullet points won’t be valid any longer. I’ll make sure of it.

Now, these video links exist elsewhere on this site, but I’ll put links here for your convenience. These are radio spots specifically dealing with education issues. Feel free to listen to the hours and hours of debate so you can form your own opinion about things. There are many radio personalities here, so the view points are varied. But the topics and discussions are fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sIDwFW6tFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxd5XO54o68
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPwhFbsTmww
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXEIUPRRxAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r09fAoSAQhM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbJETAE1iXw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAX20OsiIS0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHPjBY8UY98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7f6iBfFxV0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDvFo_v24Y0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG9vYWHO6OM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RynERHb3jBU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU57EDXLxtw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhAeyuLovtk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoviASrmQBw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDW98mhSyPQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vtoC9QosaA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9zXhNdw_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrblE1gu4lU

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Superintendent of Tomorrow

Bill Cunningham had on a superintendent from Clermont Northeastern that has been very successful at saving his district money by thinking “outside the box.” Listen to that interview here.

Here is a link to the district website: http://www.cneschools.org/

What’s interesting about that interview is the superintendent is actively pursuing innovative cost savings as opposed to the approach at Lakota where they spent over $50,000 just searching for a new superintendent to replace the retiring Mike Taylor. The Lakota method is the “old” way, where inflated costs are built into every step of the process, and the footprints most always lead to organized labor.

The superintendent of tomorrow will find ways to save money at every turn, including the elimination of such extraordinary candidate searches as Lakota participated in. The School Board elected to spend $40,000 looking for a treasurer, and $50,000 looking for a superintendent that they haven’t yet hired.

The superintendent of tomorrow will not be bullied by union leaders as what happened at Lakota on the last Thursday of October 2008 where the teacher’s union of 1,200 members threatened to walk out on all 18,000 students they profess to think so much of. What was the primary issue in that proposed strike? Pay!

The superintendent of tomorrow wouldn’t have paid into the union system for 25 years or more and then take a passive position at the negotiating table as what happened when both sides, the LEA and the Lakota officials sat down after school that memorable Wednesday just before Halloween and finally hammered out an agreement at 12:30 AM Thursday morning, the day the LEA was ready to walk off the job.

I know quite a few teachers around the country. Specifically, in Oldham County, KY, which is one of Kentucky’s most exclusive communities, there is a teacher with a master’s degree in science that teaches geology, and his rate of pay is just shy of 50K. Doc Thompson a few weeks ago had on another teacher that was from Atlanta that was making wages in the mid-40’s, and I thought he had some valid arguments.

At Lakota, the LEA has been successful at convincing the School Board and the Superintendent that teachers should be paid on average over 62K per year, which is what they are currently being paid at Lakota. In fact, Mike Taylor is quoted saying, “I don’t think teachers are paid enough.” Such superintendents have recklessly encouraged the extraordinary wage rates that are occurring at Lakota.

And the economic disaster that is being described which is hitting Lakota is caused by these same wages that are too high if it is considered that state money is not a factor and that the communities must fund the budget on their own. The superintendent of tomorrow will help keep wage cost in line to protect the communities they serve and still maintain great teachers for a good price.

The superintendent of tomorrow will reflect the community, and will build an administration that does the same, and not be lap dogs for powerful unions, that takes the union dues collected from each teacher and applies those funds to progressive political candidates that only exacerbate the situation further at the state level. When it’s said that our tax money stays local, it does not. Those union dues work in a way to support democratic and progressive candidates, and are only a cleaver way invented by organized labor to prop up the candidates they support. The money originally comes from the local tax payer that just wants to have the community schools teach their children.

When we find this superintendent of tomorrow, we can begin to solve some of the problems of today, but not until then.

Now for those of you that want more information check out this press release from from the Buckeye Institute. I’m not the only one saying this stuff. Feel free to check the link at the end of the press release.   Oh, and you YesLakota people, I’m for education too.  Keep it under our 160 million dollar budget and we’ll all get along.  But don’t ask the community to pay for your poor business understanding.  Go ahead, check the link below. 

Buckeye Institute News Alert
Where Transparency Is More Than A Slogan And Ideas Really Do Matter

PRESS RELEASE January 18, 2010

Contact: Matt Mayer,

2010 K-12 Teacher Salary and Estimated Pension Data added to Searchable Database along with Search Counter

COLUMBUS – The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions today released on its website the 2010 K-12 salary and estimated pension data for all Ohio public school teachers. Unlike the data collected for previous years, the 2010 data includes salary and pension information for many superintendents, principals, and other administrative staff members. The pension data includes each teacher’s salary based on a 2,080-hour year (40 hour work-week, 52 week year) so users can properly evaluate teacher pay, as most teachers are contractually limited to working 1,350 hours per year.

In 2010, approximately 1,800 school employees earned over $100,000 per year. Due to increasing staffing costs, Ohio’s 613 public school districts are expected to face a $7.6 billion funding deficit by 2015, with personnel expenses consuming 96 percent of tax revenues.

In the last election, citizens used the Teacher Salary Database to hold their school districts accountable for spending choices, citing that average teacher salaries had grown at rates that, in many cases, far outpaced inflation.

In addition to the new data, the website now contains a search counter which records the number of searches performed in the eight database tools (State Salary, Federal Salary, Higher Ed Salary, Teacher Salary, Local Salary, School Data, County Data, and State Lobbyists). Since the website’s launch on April 30, 2010, visitors from 473 Ohio cities, the 49 other states, and 119 foreign countries have spent over 20,000 hours conducting almost 1.5 million data searches.

Buckeye Institute President Matt A. Mayer stated: “With so many school districts under financial duress, it is now even more important than ever that taxpayers know how school districts are spending their money. Instead of cutting staff positions, sports, bussing, and other programs, most school districts could balance their budgets without raising taxes through cutting staff compensation packages by a small percentage.”

The Teacher Salary data tool is available at www.buckeyeinstitute.org.

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

A Gaze Back and Looking Forward: Education Funding is Changing Forever

The gravy days are over. The citizens are paying attention to many aspects of education that were never discussed, like teacher salaries being excessively high, and buildings with luxurious amenities. In a recent survey from Braun Research Inc. who conducted phone interviews with more than 3,400 Hoosier registered voters November 12-17, 2010, that firm’s president, Paul Braun, expressed confidence in the accuracy of the study’s results, due to “thorough briefings stressing objectivity, heavy monitoring, sample performance reviews, verifications and post-data-collection checks on each survey by interviewer and phone center.” Of the many conclusions of that survey Indiana voters lacked awareness and information about how much is spent in public schools. Nearly two out of three respondents (64 percent) underestimated per-student spending in the public schools.

As usual, Doc Thompson did some great work on this topic that he covered on the January 12, 2011 broadcast that is worth listening to. It is refreshing to have real discussions about these issues now. The gist of this discussion is that things are going to change, and change rapidly for public education funding.

But know the door has been opened. I know how difficult it was and I felt the wrath of attacks when I first started the enterprise of enlightening the public about education funding. The organized labor behind these tax levies attempted to apply The Delphi Technique on me, like they do everyone who speaks against wasteful spending, so I understand first-hand how the information has been kept quiet all over the nation for such a long time.

I countered that technique by using aspects of my personality that are entertainment oriented, something I’ve developed over the years performing in wild west shows and interviews for other projects, to throw a curve-ball at their strategy and start the ball rolling so others could hold the door open, and then others behind them could start pouring in to get control of the out-of-control spending that has been occurring in schools. It took that initial surprise from the organized unions by my approach to pry the door open. They really believed that by painting me as some hick cowboy running around with a whip that I would be made into something of a fool, which they counted on. What they didn’t know was that I have a business background, and I’m better at understanding difficult concepts than I am with the whip work. So because of their one-dimensional understanding of people, they were unprepared. And much to my surprise, people enjoyed the image I was projecting, of rugged individualism, and standing firm in overwhelming odds.

The truth of the matter was that it felt that way to me, like I was against the world. But I actually had hundreds of people behind me supporting the structure of everything, people who put up the money for the yard signs, people who went to all the meetings and took notes that they’d pass to me. People from inside the school system that was tipping us off to what was going on, and people who were going door to door to pass out literature. There were other people who worked the email campaign, and helped in so many other ways. But since I was the face of it, the wrath came at me, and I deflected it with the cowboy image while the business side worked with some very smart people to crunch numbers and get to the truth.

At the end of the day, that cowboy image says more about me than the business side. My children and grandchildren won’t discuss someday how good I was at working with numbers in a spreadsheet or negotiated a contentious point in a dispute. They’ll talk about the speed and accuracy competitions at cowboy events, and the many times I’ve shocked audiences with my fire whip displays, including professional stuntmen. So that image is far from just some conjured up image for marketing reasons. But it did help in this case, to overcome the opposition in a unique way.

What usually happens in management is that once you show people how to do something, they’ll then take that information and put their own spin on it. And that’s what’s happening by people who are far more passionate about education reform than I am. I have discovered now through correspondence from people who have been fighting this fight for many, many years, that all some of these people needed was a crack in the door. And they understand more about how the game is played than ever, now that we’ve started having really intelligent conversations on WLW.

Darryl Parks has been talking this talk much longer than I have, so it wasn’t difficult for him and me to feel some passion about the shake-down that occurs. But I think everyone was surprised when I went on WLW with our treasurer, Dan Varney and discussed the wage levels back in September, because that information was straight out of the newspaper. But the game that is played is that information is released in March, when the last things people are thinking about are schools or elections. Spring is on their minds, and coming out of a long winter. So most people would wad up the paper and toss it in the trash.

But my good buddy Graham George, who is a senior citizen, and is always organized kept that paper from March of 2010, and we went on the air at WLW and discussed it with Scott Sloan. The reaction from the public was so violent and sudden that I was surprised that nobody had done this kind of thing before.

Fortunately I had scheduled with the Cincinnati Enquire to have a backyard interview with me because of my YouTube video, A Whip Trick to Save America the very next day, and they wanted to do a feature about that and how it applied to my resistance to the school levy. So when that story came out, the gloves came off. The progressives all over the state that were listening to WLW decided to make me out to be some illiterate cowboy, which of course didn’t fit the facts I was able to put out on the radio broadcasts. People saw how the game was played and when I didn’t turn away and hide, but only increased my activity, it allowed people to see the structure of the game.

Now that the deed is done, the School Board is struggling to figure out what to do next. They are talking about solar panels, which is fine, but still doesn’t address the largest cost to the budget which is wages, and should be explored regardless of a budget crisis. The board is now fighting for the president position arguing over who should lead. Ray Murry is talking the right type of issues, discussing whether or not the district should have spent 90K on an employment search for a new treasure and superintendent. Those are nice discussions and I’m happy to hear the debate on both sides, but in reality, it’s just politics because the numbers are just peanuts compared to the elephant eating them.

However, the problems will only get tougher, so while the School Board is struggling with each other to figure out what the community wants, they would be very “wise” to accept the help of our local business leaders that have offered to assist.

I have placed the offer to the board and was told that “most business people would probably become frustrated by the restrictions.” That was a polite way to say that the situation is too complicated for most businessmen to deal with. Well, that complication has been made complicated for a reason, and it’s to prevent “outsiders” from being able to offer fixes. It’s all part of the organized labor strategy, and the community knows it.

And I can promise that the education of those types of methods will only increase as more and more people send me information hoping that I’ll articulate it on the radio or on this blog.

So it is advisable that the games stop now. Grab the hands that are offering to help and be ready to do things you’d consider unthinkable 6 months ago. If you do it now, you can save the district and yourselves, and many, many jobs. If you don’t we will go off a cliff as a district.

The next levy attempt will not be about Rich Hoffman the cowboy whip cracker. Too many people want to be involved and I will gladly accept their help. I have enough personality and success that I don’t need the attention. I’ll put myself out there if people don’t feel comfortable doing it themselves, but I don’t see that being a problem in 2011. Because I see a wave of volunteerism, and other people who can speak coming boldly forth to push that door open even wider. So the decision doesn’t just sit on the shoulders of Lakota, but every public school everywhere.

So stop the games. Embrace the public, because they are your employers anyway, and be ready to do what’s right. Things are at a point where many things can be fixed and nobody has to be contentious enemies. It’s just business, and there are people who can offer that assistance for free, and once it’s done, Lakota could serve as a bright light of hope for all others to follow. But it takes one school to courageously step forward and be the first to open the door. Everything else will take care of itself.

But cling to the way things have been done, and the world will soon swallow you up.  So make a decision…..quick!

Rich Hoffman
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com