Category: The Symposium of Justice

Finance: The weapon of choice for World War III against America

War isn’t always easy to see when you’re in it. When history reflects on these things, reflection provides that sort of definition. And it becomes even more complicated when the means of war is not what the human race defines to look like war or feel like war.   But war it is, and we have a defined enemy now in the world that has been rooted out finally by the greatest weapon the human race has, the book publishing industry. There have been many people who have been watching what has been going on, and they have had their Paul Revere moment and done many tens of thousands of hours of work researching and writing their thoughts into a variety of books that have been published over the last year which paint quite a picture through the haze of war. And now we know we have been in World War III, and the weapon of choice and the means of attack has been finance. Not guns, tanks, nuclear weapons, but finance. The exact model that has been used to steer the world and its governments with sanctions is also used to steer every single one of us with our ESG scores and our 401K plans. It’s been a different kind of attack, and the enemy is now clear to see because the weapons are still smoking. They have been caught performing their task under tremendous pressure, pressure that came from the Trump presidency, and their desperate attempts to squash it. In their haste, they have revealed themselves from behind a veil of conspiracy and put real names next to the attackers. More and more people are talking about Names, such as Klaus Schwab, Larry Fink, and Bill Gates, to join with George Soros and many others from the Party of Davos. Now we know what they want to do and can understand how to beat them. But first, we needed to see them. 

Many have been reluctant to blame Covid-19 at their feet, but if you follow the money trail, it all goes back to them. The desire for the Party of Davos to impose “Green Energy” with the fear of climate change is the giveaway, which I pointed out the first week that Covid-19 was released out of China. We know now, and it’s commonly accepted, that the American Defense Department was involved in building a bioweapon. That much of that work was going on years before Covid was released from a lab in China. The evidence is mounting that the Chinese were being set up to take the blame by the Dr. Fauci types brokering the exchange. Much in the way that Joe Biden poked a stick into Russia, baiting them to attack Ukraine where so much corruption has happened, which is revealed in the Biden laptop. There is nothing like a war to erase the evidence and distract people who are now onto the Party of Davos. A smoke screen was needed, and Putin was pretty much shoved into action by that Party of Davos in the same way Covid was released. Ultimately, all the objectives for this war trace back to the desire to control fossil fuels and shove us all into a zero-emission world as defined by the left-winged activists who populate the World Economic Forum, who intend to attack the human race from beyond any country, to the very root of all existence, our money supply. 

The plot was revealed most ostentatiously when President Biden sought to go around the American Constitution and back door all means of management when a vaccine mandate was imposed on America’s businesses which put human resource departments in the role of government enforcer. And the government they were enforcing for was not the American government, but the Party of Davos, as defined by them in a corporate way which had been forming under the weight of ESG scores and a new way of investing in public companies. Quickly, companies rushed to comply with these invisible masters without considering the source until eventually, the courts caught up and ended it. But the United Nations crowd had been attacking America from just such a method for decades through their Agenda 21 and now 2030 strategies, which is in every zoning board in America now. All those methods point to the Party of Davos as the origin, including the cancel culture rhetoric, the buying up of progressive DAs to undermine our legal system. All these methods have been imposed on us through finance and the flow of money, which gets the attention of corporations. And which culture in America where politicians dance to corporate influence to get donations, the Party of Davos had their vulnerability, and they meant to exploit it. But they were caught in this, too, by their tampering with the Federal Reserve in the United States, which was never constitutional. Like the Covid vaccinees, they exploited a loophole in our system of government to manipulate the value of our dollar and use that inflated power to buy up American companies with public stock options to take over their boards and inject poison directly into western culture for an economic takeover by that mysterious Party of Davos. The broker, in this case, was Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, and his direct ties to the Federal Reserve just as he sits on the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. 

By controlling our money and our jobs, the Party of Davos intends to control the political nature of the entire world. They have influenced much of the bad behavior we have seen over the last several years. Who was it that called those five states on election night to stop the counting so that the election could be stolen from Trump, our pick, in 2020? Look to the Party of Davos, for Covid, for election theft, for the push of Russia to attack Ukraine. To prop up China as the next baddie globally and convert the monetary standard to them and away from America. All this has been an attack on our very way of life, and it started with ESG scores, of controlling our behavior to the values of Davos and not American politics. And to take our power away, they sought to change the way we measure value, from actual profits to whether or not we had people of color or homosexuals on our boards of directors. And while we answered those questions with the same hair on fire compliance that we did the vaccine mandates, the Party of Davos convinced our Federal Reserve to dump money into Wall Street to prop up BlackRock, State Street, and Blackstone into agents of environmentalism.

The Party of Davos was going to get its grip on the world using the excuse of Climate Change to do it. The crazy left-wingers in the American government behind Covid and behind the quantitative easing in the Fed thought that the ends justified the means.   They would save the earth from climate change by destroying America from the inside out, and they almost got away with it. But, as I said, they have been caught. We see behind the veil now, and their covert behavior is out in the open. Many are shocked and aren’t sure what to do about it. But the first step is in understanding the problem and admitting to ourselves that this has all been a massive worldwide war. And it does mean that we must take a stand here and now. Otherwise, history will remember our cowardice, and they won’t forgive us for it.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

A Trip to the Zoo: The crimes the Fed committed with BlackRock

I have nothing against Larry Fink. I also don’t have anything against snakes, wolves, and other predatory creatures. And it was at a recent trip to the zoo with my wife, two daughters and all my grandchildren on an unusually pleasant day in the winter of 2022 where I was thinking about these things, and specifically Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock. I was thinking about the progressive attack by them and their ESG scores which is undermining the entire political system of America. Some of the exhibits at the zoo were in low light for the benefit of the animals, and some of the best-camouflaged ones were hard to see. For instance, some of the snakes were right in front of our faces but blended into their environment so well they were hard to see even just a few feet away. I had a nice time seeing some of the dangerous animals with the kids and who could be the first to spot them. We had a nice day at the zoo. Still, it was more than beneficial for me to understand a great menace to American culture and understand the author of much of the desecration that has been happening to us through woke culture. And ultimately, what food fed those beasts. When people ask where the problems of our world start, it’s hard for them to see, but what I’m going to report here is something that should make it easier to understand. 

Larry Fink is not my kind of guy; he voted for Hillary Clinton. He’s a Democrat. He’s an old flower child from southern California and a political science major in college. He always wanted a career in politics, even as a young man. He ended up working on Wall Street, and he had some big hits on the upstream. It took several years, but eventually, he founded BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, and has amassed a tremendous amount of power because of it. Larry and I are political opposites. While he votes for Democrats, I vote for conservative Republicans. I have no reason to be angry at Larry for those things. But I do knowing what I do about his relationship with the Federal Reserve and what he has done with the money. Of course, other money management firms have also benefited from this relationship with the Fed. But Larry is undoubtedly the cutting edge. When the housing collapse occurred in 2008 after Larry had just recently lost $100 million for investors, the Fed, led at the time by Ben Bernanke, called him up to clean things up, which BlackRock did. It bought up all the bad debt and turned it into assets that saved much of the industry, and Larry was becoming known as the man with the Midas touch. That federal relationship would then continue for the next decade, making BlackRock climb in power and wealth to now over 10 trillion dollars in managed assets. 

It’s not hard to figure out what happened. After the 2008 financial meltdown, the Fed had a balance sheet of $900 billion. During ZIRP (zero interest rate policy), that number went to 4.5 trillion through quantitative easing, which took place from 2010 to around 2019. Then, after Covid in 2020, the balance sheet went up to 8 trillion, creating a massive asset bubble, which directly built up BlackRock’s wealth. You can almost chart the growth rate of BlackRock directly to the quantitative easing that the Fed was pumping into the economy over that period. BlackRock had direct government contracts attached to the Fed, which has now given them that direct wealth Larry Fink uses to impose woke policies on American CEOs through ESG scores as he was put on the Board of Trustees at the World Economic Forum, the Party of Davos in 2019. The problem with all this is that Larry Fink is not some genius who could make money happen out of thin air. BlackRock was built with a public/private partnership with the Federal Reserve through experimental financing, and that inflated asset bubble wealth that Larry Fink has used to lure in many stock buys of major American corporations, and to manage many private 401K accounts tying most of us in some indirect way to a massive evil that leads straight to the doorstep of the Party of Davos, is being used to bypass our political system altogether to impose on America climate change and other progressive platform positions that are totally unacceptable.

Like the snakes at the zoo, it was hard to see what Larry Fink was up to. But like some unsuspecting varment, many have been eaten by the snakes of Davos, for which Larry Fink is just one. This isn’t a conspiracy theory of the mysterious Illuminati or some other cabal of secret societies. No, this is just out in the open, hidden in plain sight. Many people don’t like to think about finances or politics, so understanding this incestuous relationship that the Fed has with Wall Street and progressive politics has been just another way to camouflage the snakes right in front of our faces, and they think they are so well hidden that we won’t ever see them. But we do see them; some of us do. And now that we know the game they are playing, we have a lot of reasons not to like Larry Fink. If it’s my vote against his, we could consider fair elections in a healthy republic. But when Larry uses the government to get artificial power and then uses that power to bypass our election system, to impose on society woke politics and climate change which we may or may not agree with, a line of disaster and much anger has been crossed. This is corruption that is beyond reasonable. And our own government has helped camouflage this behavior using our money and value to do it. Only to have that money and value used against us as a weapon. And that’s not OK. That goes quite a bit beyond reasonable political theater, but to a hydra of corruption, that is everything that President Jackson initially warned America about during his administration. 

I was thinking about all this that day and many other days since the start of 2010. I have read more than 30 books about these issues, some from the good guys, some from the bad guys, since November of 2021. After watching all the Davos coverage from 2022 in late January, it all came together for me. A few weeks later, I found myself at the zoo with my family thinking about snakes and other predatory animals and the Party of Davos. Snakes just the same, only with different kinds of skin and manner. But they all feed off the overly trusting and unsuspecting, using their camouflage to strike. The real crime here isn’t so much in Larry Fink. He’s just a snake doing what snakes do; they eat and feed off the lives of others. No, the real crime here is the Federal Reserve itself. If good people were in charge of the Fed, much of this massive corruption could have been managed. But, the truth is, we can’t always know that the 12 members of the Fed have their minds about them in the right way. Suppose they get into trouble covering for socialist presidents like Barack Obama, who regulate too much. Why wouldn’t they reach out to Larry Fink, who has other political plans that are very progressive? The answer is that they do and will every time they are given an opportunity. And now we have foreign influence from well beyond the shores of America running our money and our government. Not through the political process, but through money management, through firms like BlackRock, Blackstone, Vanguard, and State Street—companies we all deal with. Now they are imposing on us progressive politics and using our money as a weapon, so who should we be angry with, the snake that just wants to eat, or our inability to see it, before it is too late?

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Our Flag is Still Here: The key to winning in a hostile world

Our Flag is Still Here

I hear the concern in people’s voices.  But my optimism about the strength of the American idea is not based on fluffy hopes strung together by nonsense.  As I discuss in the video above, America has been attacked in just about every direction that can be imagined, yet we are still here.  We have withstood some vile attempts from a jealous world, and we have stood up far better than anybody expected, and that is something to build on and understand.  My perspective, and the one that fueled the contents of my new book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business so that I could share it with others and give them a blueprint to what America is and all that it should be, is that I work with guns a lot and in so doing, it removes a lot of fear from my life.  And when you are functioning without a lot of anxiety, you tend to see things more clearly.  For instance, as I was filming the video for this article, I was preparing for a long weekend shoot with the Ohio Fast Draw Association International up in Darke County, Ohio.  Let me tell you, that weekend shoot was a little bit of paradise.  There were a lot of really good people there.  Every fast draw match starts with a pledge of allegiance and a prayer.  At one point, the wind had blown off the mount where our American flag was hanging, and the organizers of the event stopped everything and picked it up to fold it neatly to put back in the truck.  There was nothing phony about it; these guys loved the flag and took what it represented very seriously.

Additionally, I go shooting every other Friday at my local range in West Chester. By spending a lot of time with guns, people who shoot guns, I get to see a side of America that is invisible to most people.  And I would say that for those looking around and are scared, there is a lot of evidence that our country is still here and that all these attempts to overthrow it will fail.  But our nation needs a boost now and then, which is the context of this little message.  There is a lot more right than wrong, and the wrongs can be fixed.  All it takes is for us to show a little courage. 

I will always propose that one of the things that make America unique is its gun culture.  That is why I am pretty calm talking about these things, because ultimately, if all things go to hell in a handbasket, I have a way to defend my family and myself, anywhere, at all times.  I don’t get up every day thinking of shooting someone. Still, my perspective on my independence is very traditional, as it has been in America before when the world’s nations looked at America and wanted to tear it down for being too good and too rich.   I explain all that in my book for reference, but in short, that jealousy of the world toward us has fueled much of the evil we are witnessing now.  Only they won’t say it that way.  Instead, they have attempted to get us to undo ourselves through drugs, through bad ideas, through illegal immigration to change voting patterns and every other means of erosion of morality through religion and financial strife.  I understand that it can all look pretty scary for people who don’t have the means to defend themselves.  After all, we all know the victims of this attack against America from every front.  We see the cost to their minds and bodies.  Yet, I find it quite evident that America has endured despite all the attempts to sink it.  People may be debilitated and lost.  But the idea of freedom has withstood the test of time in a very positive way which, believe it or not, has the bad guys on the run.  I can see it clearly, from the Dr. Fauci types to the leaders of all the major countries.  They did not think America would withstand all that it has. 

As I was driving home from the shoot in Greenville, I was catching up on the news.  We had been doing our Fast Draw event out on the border of Indiana at a shooting range isolated well from the outside world.  There wasn’t much of any internet, so I was in a news blackout during the shoot.  But back in the car driving back to Cincinnati, I caught up on all the news stories, and there was a good one about a minor league baseball team where the announcer had told everyone they were going to skip the National Anthem.  That caused an uproar in the audience, so they took over, and all stood and sang the song themselves, which forced the players to join them.  This has been happening in other places too.  People are refusing the Woke culture that is trying to shut down the American idea of greatness.  Instead, they are not looking to the authorities to protect their free speech ability; they are just taking it upon themselves to do so anyway.   That is the America I know, and I see a lot of that wherever I go.  What they are telling us on the news is not representative of how America is.

Additionally, I have traveled all over America this year and can say I’ve seen it up close.  Traveling west, which doesn’t get talked about much because electorally, the votes from those states aren’t very significant to elections. Still, as I described at our Ohio Fast Draw event, you can see a love for the American flag in the people.  I see in people a refusal to allow America to fall.  What is happening is that many of them are just waking up to the danger, but once awake, I see that they will do what they need to do.  I am sure of it, which is the purpose of sharing this view through this article.  A lot of people need to know that America isn’t going away.  Trump will return to the office.  But my warning to everyone is that the fight doesn’t go away.  The lack of conflict is what caused all the attacks in the first place.  We are required as a people to stand up for ourselves.  I recommend getting a gun, practicing with that gun, and spending time around others who do.  That will put your mind in the right place.  But it’s just the start of being engaged in society to the point that it is required to defend freedom and liberty. 

We have to take a moral stand on the kinds of things that make a good American.  Even though we have shown that we can withstand the many attacks, in the future, we will need to be more resolute and not so apologetic about our success.  Rather, let all the jealous countries see that pride and mimic it for themselves.  Who cares if they are jealous?  Force them to get better through competition with us.  That ultimately will save them.  But as Americans, don’t fall for their poisons.  It is their poison of thoughts and action that has led to so much debilitating condition.  Give yourself options of purity and justice for all so that you can then share that with others.  And in that way, we can Save America and do what needs to be done politically, economically, and morally.

Rich Hoffman

The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business
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A House Divided is OK: What I learned from Gretchen Wollert’s book ‘Born To Fight’

Its Better to be a House Divided than to put up with Evil

When Gretchen Wollert sent me an invite to review her new book, Born to Fight: Lincoln and Trump, I’ll have to admit that I was a little skeptical.  And I always think about that skepticism whenever I bring out a new book as I am now.  Many people are out there writing books, so how are you supposed to know one from another now that publishing has decentralized?  Ironically, we live in a time when more books are produced and sold globally, yet human beings seem to have lost the means to their intellect.  But there was something about Gretchen that I liked a lot, so I read her book and found it quite good.  It was more than just another book on Trump riding on the coattails of his presidency.  What she did that was unique was compare President Lincoln and President Trump in a parallel that was oddly similar in so many ways.  Not to mention was an unusual reminder of the times we live in and how they aren’t much different than how things were before and after the Civil War.  Where I didn’t expect to learn much new for me, it turned out that Gretchen’s comparison over more than 100 years of American history was the exact thing needed to answer a question I had been thinking about a lot lately, whether we should be a house divided or value the ways we are different.  And to accept that fate. 

In my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, I have many quotes that I like a lot. Still, as I read Gretchen’s book, one came to mind how the Civil War started essentially because Lincoln was elected. Soon after he won his re-election, he was killed by a radical leftist, an actor from that social order, just a few days after the war was over.  JFK was killed very early in his term, again by a radical leftist—an open communist that many think was deeply tied to a newly created Deep State.  By the time Trump came along, the killing of presidents had changed. My quote reflects this transition as such: “Once the dandies of the world took ownership of production, the means to a living, a new way of killing people has become fashionable–the ruining of their reputations or at least the attempt of it. These days we call it “cancel culture,” but that is just a new name for an old practice: that replaced the honor of a gunfight to the death to preserve honor and integrity.”  The attempt to kill Trump was under the new method of erasing him from existence, starting with Twitter.  The modern belief is that a killed reputation is better and cleaner than actually shooting someone in the head, removing them from life itself.  We might now look at the behavior of the political left and our modern Deep State and be shocked into inaction by the evil of it all, but it’s not new. It’s a repeat of history over and over again.  These repulsive forces against the righteousness of America will never go away until they are defeated and utterly destroyed.  There has always been an assassin element rooted in political parties in America, so far always on the political left, and our good Christian sensibilities have usually turned the other cheek over and over again, empowering the bullies.  But what is happening now is not unusual.  It happened before, which is what Gretchen was able to capture wonderfully in her book.  And if we don’t put an end to it, we will see assassinations physically or by social ostracization well into the future.  There is no making peace with it. 

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Now Lincoln tried to bring everyone together by stating that a “House divided cannot stand.” And to this day, many Republicans are still saying it, and they are always the first to compromise.  That gives the wild communists always left-leaning the power and leverage politically.  They know Republicans will move off their position; they never meet anybody halfway.  Democrats take and take and take until there is nothing left but an empty husk of the country.  And if you don’t do what they want you to do, they plot to get rid of you in every way possible. That’s how they function.  They know Republicans don’t want a “house divided,” so they are always looking to show just how much the house is divided.  And they use that leverage to dominate the right in every way.  That is until people voted for Donald Trump, and he was willing to fight the good fight against the Deep State, much to the political left’s consternation.  But this time, the left was slipping, and they had to get rid of Trump before they lost their grip on power, which I would argue has already happened.  The left has power on paper.  But they do not have the hearts and minds of the masses, and that brand has been forever damaged.  They are presently living a very slow-moving death. 

I closed Gretchen’s fine book thinking that America can stand as a divided house.  Ultimately, Lincoln picked a moral war that killed hundreds of thousands of people for the idea of freeing the slaves.  The battle was a bloody mess, and it had to happen to do what was right in the world.  Trump, in his way, had to stand up to China and the jealous villains of the world who wanted to see the end of America. Trump’s America First platform was, in its way, a demand for freedom from the clutches of Chinese communism that had been well planned and was well on its way before Trump took office.  The violent reaction to Trump being elected was much the same as the South had toward Lincoln.  There will always be these violent uprisings when people pick a president outside of the forces that think they are in control.  And to take a page out of President Roosevelt, which I think is another good comparison to Trump, peace is no good if we allow evil to boil into life.  Specifically, Teddy Roosevelt said, “the pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.” When we see evil, we are compelled to face it down and destroy it.  Not to make friends with it. 

Ultimately, that is what I learned from Gretchen’s book.  For her point, she wanted to show how similar the lives of Lincoln and Trump were.  But it’s in the context of history that the more powerful message is clear to all.  As the American people, we always have picked the right kind of fighters to do what needs to be done.  The forces that want to keep us under control have always sought to kill off our champions for justice, which we have seen in our own time with how Trump has been treated.  But as we’ve seen, this isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.  We must allow for the house to be divided, not to sacrifice everything to unite it.  We need to have our battles; we need to fight the fights.  And through the smoke, we need to see who wins.  But to accept evil, no, we can’t do that. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Answer: Rebranding is just the start

Rebranding is just the start

I appreciate everyone’s patience with the Overmanwarrior’s Blog site changes. It’s been time for a while for some rebranding, the Overmanwarrior name.  It is so blacklisted all over the internet that it has only been accessible through direct emails. I’ve been thinking of changing it to something more appropriate for today’s problems, so I finally did it to accommodate the next steps in front of the freedom movement.  Way back when I started the blog site over 11 years ago, I knew there would be conflict because we had been dealing with education issues, and with that came teacher union intimidations.  I knew there would be doxing and mob attempts to crush any opposition to them directly, so the Overmanwarrior name was appropriate for the conflict that was coming.  But things have changed a lot over the years, and I would say that the blog site was very successful in doing what I intended it to do.  Now, parents are standing up to their school boards and are finally sticking up for themselves.  The truth about what the free government schools were always about is finally coming to light. It is gratifying for me to see many parents now fighting for their schools in their districts the way they should have always been.  But hey, it’s better late than never. 

Now, after the 2020 elections, we have a new kind of fight that must be endeavored. I’ve taken some time to think about it appropriately; since the election, I have traveled over 10,000 miles in my RV with my wife and family to see America and make sure I understood the problem.  As I have been saying, I’ve been working on a book titled the Gunfighter’s Guide to Business for a few years now. Still, after the election, it became clear that the strategy guide I worked on for businesses could be directly applied to this new kind of insurrection.  The corporate buy-in to our current government, where a hostile takeover had taken place in picking Biden by them and getting rid of our guy, Trump, was easy to exploit.  Trump, after all, was fixing things which this new corporate government didn’t want to see happen.  It’s something our country had not seen before, where a conglomeration of corporate interests looking to increase their coverage for their products meant an alliance with the 1.3 billion people China had under their control.  To get there, they’d have to get rid of the power and might of the United States.  It was a new concept to all of us that the corporations like McDonald’s and the NBA would so actively work against America that we didn’t have a place to understand what was happening. 

I felt at the time that my strategy guide would be effective in this new age of passive-aggressive combat by a new kind of insurgency.  But I needed to see for myself because that’s how I solve problems.  I might have an instinct that is correct about the matter, but I need to touch and feel to work out an issue, and that’s just what I did with my family.  I turned off the news and hit the road spending a considerable portion of 2021 traveling and seeing America for what it is.  As a result, I am sure of the solutions, and I plan to share them with everyone with a rebranding of my Overmanwarrior.blog site. It is now called Gunfighterguide.shop not just for the distribution of my new book, but the strategy support center that this new fight will require and be a one-stop-shop for those wanting to fight back but are unsure how or why.   It was not easy to do; I have over a decade of branding with Overmanwarrior that people enjoyed.  When I finally pulled the plug on the domain name, I heard from hundreds of people who were zapping me with texts worried that the blog was gone.   It was never gone, but the problem was that the overmanwarrior name was so blacklisted that people couldn’t get to it any other way without a direct email link.  I don’t have any illusions that the blacklisting will stop now with a name change; the cut is a fresh start to work toward a more productive outcome.

I’ll talk about some of my experiences in postings to come. Still, a recent visit to Mt Rushmore and a rodeo in Cody, Wyoming, were two places that gave me a clear picture of what the post-election strategy of 2020 needs to be, and I’m going to contribute a significant amount of my efforts to that observation.  I wouldn’t say that those events changed my life, but rather that they reaffirmed what I had already been thinking about with direct evidence. I’ve seen America directly, and they did not vote for Joe Biden.  Out of all those miles, I have seen hundreds if not thousands of campaign signs for Trump all along the highways, even in blue states.  I have not seen a single one for Joe Biden.  The United States people did not elect Biden; he was put in place by corporate control, which has now overtaken our present government as they eye global influence for their market expansion. It’s a short-sighted goal typical of most middle managers in a corporate structure, but it’s the villain we must deal with in our modern republic. I am confident that now that we’ve identified the problem, there are reasonable solutions. 

As I said in the video above, this corporate problem in balance with the rules of our republic has constantly threatened to be a villain.  I mean, with Apple alone having more value as a company than the GDP of most countries, the temptation toward corruption will always be present for all but the best minds; we only compound the problem with Facebook and Google along with many others.  But we cannot just ostracize them out of existence and surrender the contributions toward GDP, so they must be dealt with tactfully.  And I don’t mind saying so.  You cannot kill the cancer by killing the patient.  We must remove cancer and save the patient, which I am proposing with this new branding change.  If our problems were previously to identify the issues of our republic, our new goal is to use what we know to restore that republic.  And we must accept that villains will always be present, so our focus must incorporate such knowledge.  With that said, I appreciate everyone’s patience. I’ve been working hard on solving some of these problems intellectually and devising some means of communicating them to those upset about the loss of their country to hostile foreign forces.  It’s not enough to point at the problem, we must also solve the problem, and at this point, I think we can do that without destroying everything in its wake.  Also, I think we owe it to ourselves to have a little fun along the way.  I do not feel desperate about the state of our union or the Biden presidency.  Seeing people all over this nation firsthand without the news telling me what they are thinking has convinced me that the heart of America is alive and well. It’s the corporate takeover that is in jeopardy, and the news represents that attempt.  And if that were all you saw of America, you’d worry too.  But our situation is much better off than they’d like you to believe, and we’re going to have a lot of fun exploiting that issue at their expense.

Rich Hoffman

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The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

My Advice on Bitcoin: The goal by America’s enemies is to collapse the dollar

Most days, and several times during those days, I get asked my opinion on Bitcoin and how much I’ve invested in it.  The answer is that I don’t support Bitcoin, and I have not invested any money in it, no matter how much speculators talk it up.  To me, it’s a mechanism to collapse the American dollar as the dominant force in the world, and I’d advise against participating in cryptocurrency.  Sure, some money might be made, but the revolution itself is more scam than reality.  As I say in the video above, under a collapsed America instigated by a Biden presidency, I can see how hiding money in a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin would be attractive.  A pirate currency isn’t a bad idea when the world falls apart and ends up flat on its face, as things appear to be today.  My focus is on electing Trump to a second term, and up and down the tickets Republicans strong enough to last for the next 30 to 40 years.  I have invested in America First and a strong USA dollar that continues to lead the world.  Running from that world and hiding money in places like cyberspace is not a good idea—because, ultimately, the internet is not free.  The governemnts of the world control cyberspace.  You don’t run to cyberspace to rebel or hide from them.  It would help if you faced them directly.  And take power away from them and put it where it belongs, in our Republic backed by the American currency.  That is how to preserve and retain value in our financial health.

Cliffhanger the Overmanwarrior


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Life on the Moon: The ancient past and modern activity of alien life above our heads

I don’t say things until I’ve considered the evidence intently and one of the reasons I’ve been most insistent to write The Curse of Fort Seven Mile with an emphasis of late is because of a realization that I’ve discovered through quite a lot of research.  These rumors of some type of life on the Moon of our earth have some weight to them.  From the 1976 book written by George Leonard Somebody Else Is on the Moon (linked below) compelling evidence from actual NASA photographs open the topic profoundly.  It’s an expensive book to get, but well worth it.  Additionally I think it is the remarks of the astronauts who have actually walked on the moon, people like Edger Mitchell and Buzz Aldren who have provided such virtuous testimony—some intentionally, some not so much so.  The evidence points more to the fact that there are constructions on the moon that shouldn’t be there and that there is presently, or has been, an alien race active on its surface.  If you can’t afford the old Leonard book feel free to watch these following videos for some supportive evidence to the fact.

http://www.amazon.com/Somebody-Else-Moon-Artifacts-Leonard/dp/1499250797/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462071157&sr=1-2&keywords=ulos+unidentified+lunar+objects

One of my first big memories as a kid was visiting the Neal Armstrong museum at Wapakoneta, Ohio while my family went on a trip to Put-in-Bay—I was around four years old.  Years after that, my class went on a field trip to the museum there while in grade school and I oddly enough remembered  most everything because I had been there before.  I was the kid who always read the literature on the exhibits, so I felt very much at home compared to the other kids who had seen the place for the first time.  Armstrong was a professor at the University of Cincinnati—which was in my hometown and his life occurred very much around me—and I was aware of that growing up.  Aviation was born around me as well, so I’ve always taken some pride in the Wright Brothers and old test pilots like Neal Armstrong who was obviously the first person to walk on the moon—at least that we know of.  What always bothered me about Armstrong was that he had turned inward after the experience.  He wasn’t like Buzz Aldren—Armstrong didn’t relish the celebrity of being the first man on the moon—he had a secret which he avoided talking about and obviously took to his death.

Given Armstrong’s Midwestern roots, I think the guy didn’t like lying to people about what he saw on the moon when NASA switched to a private broadcast while he and Buzz were standing on the surface in July of 1969.  I was one year old at the time and my parents were standing me up in front of the television to see the event.  All I remember of the occurrence was the shape of the ship and the sounds of the transmissions which I recognized at the museum years later in Wapakoneta.  I didn’t understand the context at the time, but the layers of memory solidified it in my thinking for years to come.  While everyone was impressed that mankind was standing on the moon, Armstrong had confirmed much of what NASA wanted to see, which wasn’t filmed with cameras that were made public.  We were not alone—not by a long shot—and it haunted him for the rest of his life—apparently.

I’ve talked about the moon before, there are several things not right with it—it’s a little too perfectly positioned and it is locked in a type of orbit around the earth that never shows its far side.  That is a little weird as well.  And apparently on the far side there are even more strange photographs of things that should not be there if Neil Armstrong was truly the first life form to ever walk on the surface.  This of course has led to a lot of speculation through science fiction but those entries into are rooted in fact.  For me the most compelling evidence is that we have not returned—and neither has any other country.  The technology is clearly available to us now, yet we aren’t going back after those initial Apollo missions.  Some of the astronauts involved in the Apollo missions are now very supportive of alien life in space even if they do preserve their disclosures agreements with NASA which is after all a government agency which thinks it knows best how to preserve the religions and social order of the society it is supposed to serve.

Just a few miles south of where the Wright Brothers ran their bicycle shop which invented aviation the bones of an undocumented giant species of man was found in Miamisburg—one very large skeleton at a gravel quarry near the Great Miami River and the other under a large tree which was uprooted at a farm which bordered the mysterious Miamisburg mound complex.  Strangely enough, Hanger 18 which housed the wreckage of the Roswell crash was also nearby and to prevent proper excavation of the Miamisburg site by archaeologists and anthropologists a nuclear weapon facility was built on the land called Mound Laboratories.  That certainly stopped any real research into the region by credentialed scientists.  I currently live on the banks of the Great Miami River south of that Miamisburg site, so all these conspiracy stories have been with me for my entire life—and nobody wants to give any real answers to the probing questions—which feeds the conspiracies.   My conclusion is that there is much more to the story which is why everyone is so tight lipped.  The authorities in this case would rather not confirm or deny—they’d just prefer to avoid the topic.  But the evidence is rather compelling–it’s is all around us—we just need to look at it.

Given all that evidence, it’s just a matter of time before we have to go to the moon and discover what NASA has been avoiding to tell us.  Private space companies are headed to the moon and within just a few years of now, there will be hotels on the surface—and by then we’ll learn the hard truth—it won’t be a secret any longer.  There is a presence of some life other than our own on the moon right now and they watch us from there for reasons that we’ll discover.  I would propose that it’s a kind of interplanetary base camp and they find our civilization interesting and likely some kind of social experiment that they check up on frequently.  Just yesterday I drove by the Serpent Mound site in eastern, Ohio and scientists are no closer to figuring out the reason for that strange mound than they were twenty years ago.  In fact, they have more questions now than answers.  If our science cannot figure out the meaning of things in our own back yards, then they surely aren’t prepared to deal with what’s on the surface of the moon—an entire celestial body that has not had any of its history covered yet by modern development.  It’s an open text-book of mankind’s past and whoever was a part of helping to shape it from inception.  And it floats there above our heads—all the answers we seek—yet we do not dare to uncover.  Actually, you and I might dear reader—but our governments want to hold onto their power for just a while longer.  The evidence is there for us to investigate and when we do we have a lot of hard questions to answer about ourselves.  Of course the first step will be in returning—and I can’t wait for that to occur.  I’d rather know the truth than live with illusions.

Europeans did not discover America–the giants in the Ohio mounds prove that.  They were in North America before there was ever an Indian or a Christopher Columbus voyage.  And we did not first walk on the moon.  Someone was there before us and they are still there. ………………………………

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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“Interstellar” Epiphany and Soundtrack Review: A 50th Anniversary at Virgin Galactic’s first space resort

I had an epiphany that my wife and I were stepping off a Virgin Galactic vessel into the first hotel of their design floating above the earth with the horizon spinning outside of a massive lobby window. It is Virgin’s first hotel in space established as a resort location rivaling the Atlantis vacation destination in the Bahamas complete with an indoor water park covered with large glass windows looking out into the vastness of space. The lobby was lush and expensive with exotic restaurants all offering outrageously epic views out every window. The moon is always full and casts a constant—haunting shadow through every object and mixed with the brilliant light shining off the earth is a bluish hue that has never been replicated by any light on the home planet. It’s our 50th wedding anniversary and we have a $5000 bottle of wine to mark the year of this writing to celebrate our first week-long vacation in space. We have worked hard and deserve to pamper ourselves with a very expensive outing that will mark many years of persistence. In the lobby is playing the old soundtrack to the classic 2014 movie Interstellar, which has by then become the standard of music referencing space. It was that award-winning Christopher Nolan movie that changed it all and set the tone for the second world-wide space race causing Hilton, Marriott and Virgin Galactic to build the first space stations catering to tourism. Virgin was the first to achieve it.

The majestic views out of the multiple windows demand the music of Interstellar because nothing else would be sufficient. The hotel operators just play constantly the old Hans Zimmer soundtrack to help alleviate the shock of being grounded so firmly to the floor as the view outside swirls around like a marry-go-round. It takes some getting used to for some people; some actually throw up with the disorienting effect of the earth’s horizon spinning around so rhythmically. There are trash cans stationed along the pathway toward the check-in counter large enough for visitors to dump their stomachs in the most graceful way possible. A cleaning crew quickly removes the contents so not to alter the smell of space—that rusty metal odor mixed with the fragrance of lobby vegetation that is intended carefully to greet guests as they step off the shuttle from their journey below.

We walk to the counter as track 7 on that enchanting soundtrack plays with organs chiming to the tempo of a clock’s second hand—the earth still swirling, the light from the moon and sun moving around the room casting shadows in all directions hauntingly. Bright overhead lights on the ceiling between more large windows cast stabilizing light so that the lobby looks to be the only stable element of a universe in chaos outside—which adds to the otherworldly sensation of a species raised on a planet where the sun rises and falls every 12 hours and the horizon is always fixed. Here, the sun is always out, the moon is always full, and the horizon never stills—it spins perpetually so to provide an earth like gravity for the visitors—some who are already in their swimming suits and heading for the massive domed Water Park behind the check-in counter.

My wife and I aren’t sick; the music brings our minds to ease with a familiarity that we know well. We have listened to that soundtrack every week for the last 25 years and know its notes by heart. Before checking in we just listen to it while we sit in one of the lobby seats and watch the Virgin Galactic shuttle pull away from the docking station and head back to earth with its navigational thrusters silently pushing it back into a declination orbit to Spaceport America—our home launch point. In another three hours that same ship will be back with more visitors and within 30 minutes another ship will arrive from Spaceport America and fifteen minutes after that, one from Space Port Japan, then one from Spaceport Europe. Because Virgin Galactic has brought the Internet to Africa—they now have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Soon they will have their own spaceport in right in the middle of the Congo.

My wife and I head to our rooms and prepare for dinner. We spend five solid hours drinking our expensive bottle of wine sitting on our hotel bed watching the world turn—literally. And we cherish that this event has finally been made possible after many years of dreaming. The whole time we listen to our well-played soundtrack for the several hundred thousandth time—Interstellar, as we have always loved it and likely always will.

That soundtrack actually only came out a few days ago, on November 17, 2014, so my son-in-law rushed to Barnes and Nobel to get it for he and my daughter the moment it was unloaded from the delivery truck. They spent their evening listening to it while eating Chinese food from their favorite restaurant—and they gave me a copy. They have already seen the movie twice and are looking for ways to see it many more times. In what’s being touted as a first-of-its-kind promotion, Paramount and AMC Theatres are offering movie patrons in North America the chance to see Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar as many times as they want, for one price.

As with any deal, there are rules. Those who want to participate must be members of the AMC Stubs program, which has an annual fee of $12.

The unlimited tickets will be available for sale to AMC Stubs members at 330 AMC theater across the country, including AMC Imax locations. The price will range from $19.99 to $34.99, depending upon the location (currently, the average cost of a movie ticket price in the U.S. is $8.08.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/paramount-amc-theatres-partner-unlimited-749512

Interstellar requires for most people many viewings just to understand everything that is happening. Many critics of the film on their first viewings were used to a more conventional film experience and didn’t know what to make of some of the sound issues. As I said in my review—I think I was the first and only one to date to point it out—the sound in Interstellar was entirely on purpose. Christopher Nolan wanted there to be times where the events overwhelmed the sound made by the actors—because in real life—that happens often.

“I’ve always loved films that approach sound in an impressionistic way and that is an unusual approach for a mainstream blockbuster, but I feel it’s the right approach for this experiential film,” Christopher Nolan said, speaking for the first time in detail about the use of sound in his new film.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/christopher-nolan-breaks-silence-interstellar-749465

It is because of this approach to sound that the Interstellar soundtrack was so exceptionally good—and is why it will become the inspiration for all that I described above. When my kids gave me the first copy of the soundtrack and I played it for much of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday listening to it many, many times—it was easy to conclude that it was a masterpiece. I remember the music being great during the movie, but listening to it by itself, it was simply phenomenal as it steps up and well beyond anything that’s ever been attempted. The closest that I can think of is Philip Glass—but the Hans Zimmer approach comes with a much bolder, and narrative link to the future by drawing so historically on the past.

Blasting through the track on the soundtrack titled “S.T.A.Y” all that I began this writing above occurred with the epiphany. Many of the world’s problems seemed so miniscule and the minds that made them that way even less relevant. I could literally reach out and touch that future space station/hotel as if I were there, as if I could smell it, taste it and walk across its vast floors with Richard Branson still alive and standing in the corner welcoming his guests with long flowing locks still beyond his shoulders with a smile from ear to ear.

At dinner in my epiphany there was a guest who played in the center of a vast dinning hall with a clear picture of the moon out the distant window—again spinning around with rhythmic precision upon a large glass piano lit from beneath with blue lights that made it look like it was made out of ice. That guest was an elderly Hans Zimmer playing the Interstellar soundtrack live with a deeply personal concert, graced too with a smile from ear to ear knowing that it was his soundtrack that helped build this palace of achievement in defiance of the earthly stupidity which attempted to shackle man’s ankles to earth forever. His music helped free those shackles to usher in this entirely new age of dreamers, fortune hunters and lovers of science and possibility. It was and would be the best dinner of our lives. Happy 50th Anniversary to us—and it was.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Why So Angry: The Jeff Spicoli America

The entire world minus a few exceptions seems directly inspired to become the Spicoli character from the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  Those who are the exception are categorized as “angry” and treated much the same way the teacher who took away the pizza from Spicoli’s character in that movie was.  As a continuation of my article yesterday on leadership this one addresses the impact of what happens when leaders are removed from families, business, communities, and politics being replaced by a mindless push into oblivion precluding any judgment what-so-ever about anything (CLICK TO REVIEW).  The modern push by virtually every sector of society is to be “cool” and be a complete douche bag like Spicoli–have fun, live life, make no judgment assessments, and have pizza.  Those who are angry about the destruction of the American family, the failed education system, the corrupt politics, the leeching effect of lawyers in our society, the failed fiscal policies of nations, the attempt at religions to reignite the “crusades,” the mask of the civil rights movement to hide bad behavior behind racism and further encourage the disintegration of entire races of people, the merged sexual relationships of people and a loosening of the boundaries between right and wrong—are termed in a negative connotation as though they were somehow diseased and sick.  Even the national media has bought into this notion—anyone who has strong opinions is to be feared, ridiculed, and treated as a menace.  After all, what they learned in their colleges was not journalism—but how to party—and live the life of Spicoli.  Visit any college in America right now—and what you will find is a swarm of Spicoli’s that number the drops of water in the Atlantic Ocean—and those are tomorrow’s “leaders,” as termed by Liberty Township’s Leadership 21 classes.

Anybody who casts an opinion contrary to the flow of progressive society has been deemed as “unhealthily angry” and treated as an old fogie stuck in the past.  It is as if those who are being robbed of values that they desperately wish to see implemented in the world around them are supposed to enjoy being looted of everything they enjoy and not to be angry about it.  The classic confrontation between Jeff Specoli and the teacher Mr. Hand has become the battle cry of our day—who owns your time, your opinions, and your life—is it you—or the collective will of society?  Is it best to know things like the fogie Mr. Hand or to fall out of a van stoned like Jeff Specoli taking life as it comes without any sense of responsibility or direction?  The world has made its decision—and it has chosen Jeff Specoli.

This is why it is important to understand that if you crave values dear reader—then you must be willing to stand alone—society will not back you.  You will be alone in virtually every sector of society—and if you chose to stand for something these days—you will be considered a diabolical menace to the “surfer life” of the modern partier fresh from their campus adventures mired in marijuana smoke and valueless endeavor.  If you want values, you will have to step away from those people to have them.  You will have to stand against the current of the entire world who desires desperately to live the life of Jeff Spicoli and it will be a painful experience.  Anger will be a dominate emotion.

Spicoli is part of a surfer culture that was brought to America in a time when communism was being marketed to a conservative public.  The surfer life is a very socialist existence and in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it was shown to have merit compared to all the capitalist failures that the coming of age kids were experiencing.  The parents were all goofs, the teachers stuffy caricatures of human bodies, and the main characters had to learn to let go and loosen up to fulfill their journeys through the plot.  Jeff Spicoli was the creation of that pre-hippie lifestyle introduced to America through communist infiltration and KGB influence at a time where the actions were denied, but later proven factual. Our nation was invaded—our youth converted into Jeff Spicoli’s, and yet we are told that we aren’t supposed to be angry about it—that we should buy some weed–party—and loosen up.

But the real reason for the accusation toward anger is that those like Spicoli want to live off the efforts of collective society and to keep the interaction civil—they prefer that society gives them no resistance.  They want to loot value from your back pocket dear reader and consume it from moment to moment without an eye to the future where all value runs out.  A bank robber simply wants you to put your hands up and they wish to rob you without any fight.  They simply want your money.  They don’t want you to fight to keep it.  And so it goes with the modern thief of social value, they don’t want to fight—they just want what you have—and if it is value—they want to consume it then “party” with you so that they can pass by you in the street without guilt.

For those who need social assimilation—they are at a disadvantage when it comes to a world run by Spicoli wanna-bes.  They will always have the upper hand when it comes to a public setting because what they stand for is comfort.  Today’s real leaders who stand alone for social value must be willing to sit alone in the rain—to distance themselves from the social pressure to be Spicoli and to defend values when the current of ancient communism wishes to wash them out to sea forever hidden by the ocean depths.

The problem is so grand that we now have Spicoli types in the White House and IRS.  When the explanation is provided as to why all the IRS emails were destroyed, it sounds like Jeff Spicoli telling Mr. Hand why he was late to class.  When the White House gives a press conference, it sounds like the dream Jeff Spicoli had about being a top-tier surfer partying with the Stones in London.  And for those who find those explanations repulsive, we are just supposed to accept that Jeff Spicoli will be late to class, doesn’t care about any personal ambition for anything, and is a model citizen who just wants to smoke a joint and eat pizza.  To such people of course anyone who finds that lifestyle repulsive will seem angry—because it is disgusting to see such people leech off the public with no ambition or curiosity about life outside of getting high and filling their bellies.

Jeff Spicoli will always be the role that the actor Sean Penn will be known for.  Penn is an unapologetic communist and that personality came out so flamboyantly in the Fast Times of Ridgemont High role. The KGB may have created the hippie and surfer culture in California—but they could never have dreamed of what impact the Jeff Spicoli character would have on American youth and that virtually every young person who has seen that movie has in some way adopted the stoned beach bum into their lifestyle.  Sean Penn did more to spread the valueless utterances of communism than most of the Russian efforts during the Cold War.  And to those who see this erosion of value—they are not supposed to be angry—but accepting and ready to party.

That is why the road to a life of value will be a lonely one—and will be shouldered alone for quite a long time.   It is more important than ever that those who are leaders—naturally—will separate themselves from these Jeff Spicoli types and remake the world.  Of course we will be called “angry” but consider the sources—and be ready to shrug their opinions away for the value they really have.  And it is also important to understand that our local Chambers of Commerce and the political machines of doom are now filled with Jeff Spicoli admirers and that their ideal of leadership is equivalent to ordering a pizza during Mr. Hand’s class.

Rich Hoffman www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

I am Han Solo: The ‘Star Wars’ personality test

I’m Han Solo—at least that’s what the new Star Wars personality test told me when I took it.  A friend of mine told me that The Blaze did a story on a new Star Wars personality test by www.Zimbio.com which was actually more sophisticated than I thought it would be.  The questions are involved and pretty good about bringing to the surface the raw nature of a person’s personality as related to the Star Wars film series.  For instance, while taking the test I thought I’d come out as Obi-Wan Kenobi—whom I personally admire for his love of wisdom and the philosophic chess matches he tends to play on a galactic scale.  But Han Solo has always been my favorite character and that trait emerged during the test even though I was consciously aware of avoiding it.  So it was a pretty neat test.  At the end of The Blaze article linked below it was revealed that most of the staff at The Blaze including Glenn Beck, Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe had taken the test and were enthusiastic about their results which they promised to cover on air.  I thought this remarkable because it provides insight to all that I have been saying lately about the cultural impact of Star Wars and the future of our society.  There are few things which can unite minds quicker than Star Wars does in discussions with other people and it’s not just nerds anymore—but mainstream acceptance.  NFL football used to be that topic item breaker that anybody could discuss with any other person in business or other affairs, but quickly Star Wars is overtaking it.  It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know about Star Wars who is under 55 years old and doesn’t have an opinion about the film series.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/18/are-you-a-yoda-luke-skywalker-or-maybe-a-princess-leia-take-the-star-wars-personality-test/

I took the test while on the road at my sister-in-law’s house with many family members present so we all took the test and had a good time with the results.  I was surprised how many of them came back as Yoda, and the young men who took it mostly came back as Boba Fett—which was remarkably accurate.  There were no Darth Vader’s in our group which says a lot about the quality of our family.  That much didn’t surprise me—but the number of Yodas did—my wife included.  It could not be ignored how many of our family members instantly understood what the test was and the intent which reflected the response of The Blaze staff.  Star Wars is something that touches just about everyone as good memories of their childhoods flood back to them upon the mention of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia.

I remember what it was like to be a kid in the late 70s and early 80s.  Star Wars was everywhere—it was on the radio, it was at the stores, it was on television, it was in comics, magazines—it defined popular culture from about 1977 to 1985 when it began to subside just a bit.  Even popular films like Back to the Future and ET the Extra Terrestrial made frequent Star Wars references—so it was a huge part of that 8 year period and anybody who was a child during that period knows what I’m talking about.  That doesn’t mean that everyone was an open Star Wars fan.  Many of the kids in my school made fun of kids who openly loved Star Wars—kids like me who had Star Wars notebooks, wore Star Wars t-shirts, and drew pictures on my homework papers of Star Wars space ships.  I didn’t care what other kids said, once I got past the 7th grade, I was never picked on for Star Wars again because I had so many fights at school that kids stopped trying.  The more they made fun of me the more I rubbed it in their face.  I had a Star Wars shirt for every day of the week—my favorite was a Han Solo shirt that I never got tired of wearing.  I wore it so much that it fell apart.  I developed a rivalry with another kid in Junior High school at Lakota who was a Star Trek fan and hated Star Wars.  We actually had fist fights over Star Wars and which movie was better.  It got so bad that I shoved the kid right into the principles office as he was trying to escape me after I was waiting outside his bus in the morning to catch him with a confrontation before class started.  He had previously declared during lunch period that Captain Kirk would beat Han Solo any day of the week—so I was going to teach him otherwise. I’d give him some real life Han Solo through me—and as he was running away from he thought he’d get safety inside the principles office—which he didn’t.  I took the fight straight there shocking all the other kids in the hallway and the adults alike when I grabbed hold of the Star Trek lover by the back of his shirt and threw him right into the front door with the principle and secretary standing right there.  Nobody had been so audacious before—and nobody knew what to make of it.  Nobody understood that I loved Han Solo that much because the character represented everything I wanted to become when I grew up—and calling him names was the same as calling me names—and I wasn’t going to stand for it.

My brother and I had so many Star Wars figures that we set up our basement with elaborate hand-made models featuring Star Wars toys. Every Christmas and birthday was an opportunity to increase our holdings for these gigantic Star Wars set-ups.  On Friday and Saturday nights our friends would come over and we’d build new Star Wars buildings and ships late into the night staying up until 3 and 4 AM in a world of our own making inspired by Star Wars.  My parents couldn’t afford to give me a Millennium Falcon like many of my friends had, so I built my own out of a cardboard box.  That creation was destroyed during my late teens—and I never got over it.  During the Christmas of 1995 my wife finally bought me a Millennium Falcon when Kenner re-released the old toys with minor updates in anticipation of the Special Editions to the films which occurred in 1997.  The world we created in that basement had so much reverence for me that I wanted to do little else but create my own world in the context of that one.  We had entire areas around our set-ups in the basement sectioned off with black felt to simulate the darkness of space and on the ceiling was white felt to simulate clouds.  We had our own power supply, there were floating asteroids, and epic worlds re-created to model scale.  It was the happiest place for me on earth.

I was never shy about my admissions.  Star Wars represented limitless possibilities and an escape from oppression and Han Solo was the kind of guy who was full of confidence and a never say die attitude.  He was the model of a man who I would grow up and become.  Many other kids one-on-one loved my enthusiasm, but would never admit it in the light of day.  But privately most of them felt as strongly as I did, they just didn’t show it publicly.  I carried this love into my adulthood and it never really subsided.  With my children I raised them on Star Wars, and now with the Disney acquisition of Star Wars, my grand children will benefit—and with everything I just described, the cultural impact under Disney’s guidance will far eclipse my experience.  There will be more toys, more clothing, more music, video games, posters, magazine articles-virtually everything in our society will be touched by Star Wars and a whole new generation will find solace within the story lines.  Unlike me—who had good parents who really cared and behaved in a traditional sense–kids today have broken families, step parents and lack structure as a result of progressive social engineering policies.  The strongest thing to a real family a lot of modern kids will have is the characters of Star Wars—which as sad as that may sound—is absolutely true.

The character of Han Solo was never intended to be a hero in the way he turned out.  Fans of the films were supposed to yearn for Luke Skywalker, not Han Solo, but I could never relate to Luke’s naïveté.  I wanted to grow up and become the space pirate Solo who is more like a character out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged than any other creation ever put on-screen.  A lot of people thought this was destructive, but it has made me into an interesting adult—one who thought I’d be more like Obi-Wan Kenobi than Han Solo as more mature years are now upon me. But upon seeing the test results I was actually relieved to see that many of my core values are still intact after all these years and I can honestly say that I’ve lived my own Han Solo type of life and behaved in a very similar way when pressed.  The difference between being a young person and an old person is the experience.  People are drawn to certain types of things based on their core personality—something this Star Wars test is attempting to uncover.  When I was a kid I hoped that when faced with perilous situations that I would behave with the same valor and skill that Han Solo did in Star Wars.  Now as an adult, I no longer have any doubt.  With a string of car chases, crashes, narrow escapes, and perilous follies of virtually every type now behind me, I can rest easily now knowing I measure up to the highest hopes I had as a child.

It is for that reason that this Star Wars test is flooding office buildings and places of business with a fury.  Most of the adult population had similar hopes for themselves, and they want to know how they measure up after all these years.  Now with some of the social stigma of fandom removed, people want to know how far they have fallen from their childhood dreams.  For me—not far at all.  I would have considered Obi-Wan Kenobi to be a concession—an honorable one—but a concession.  Han Solo, out of all the characters in Star Wars was my target, and now as a grown man who has grandchildren of his own—I have hit the bull’s-eye, and for that I am very, very proud.  Setting those high standards actually made me a better grown-up than Han Solo—considerably.  But under pressure—and when it really counts—it is good to know I’m still more like Han Solo than Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And I was there……………….Han shot first!

Take the Star Wars Test for yourself and see who you are most like.  CLICK THE LINK BELOW.

http://www.zimbio.com/quiz/Ukldm8Pi5Ub/Star+Wars+Character

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com