Please Save Us Young People: Only The Mindless Will Follow!

There is without question a social engineering strategy behind the political left. Their ideas taken on their own merit are flimsy, and cannot withstand the test of time, they must, must recruit members of their rank from people who have difficulty reading, foreign immigrants trying to get the rest of their families into the country which creates an effective and loyal voting bloc, minorities that have been carefully nurtured into the welfare addiction, and the youth which aren’t old enough to know much because they don’t have the benefit of experience.

That’s why Van Jones below is pandering to the youth. He knows deep down inside that thinking people who can actually reason out the type of rhetoric he utters and won’t follow him. So he needs ground troops that are in a natural state of rebellion from their parent’s conservative ways that are seeking to create their own orbits with insubordinate behavior that provides the escape velocity from their childhoods to do so.

Such rhetoric is seductive to the weak mind, and most youth have not yet acquired strength.

What does it speak of a movement that requires mindless acceptance, or the sole benefit of a charismatic speaker? How deep are the roots of a movement that must capitalize on ignorance and naïveté? We can see the effect of this brain washing ability as thousands of idolizing media students studied Walter Lippmann in college and set them on a course which is obvious to this day.

Lippmann believed that the“governing class” must rise to face the new challenges. He saw the public as Plato did: a great beast or a bewildered herd – floundering in the “chaos of local opinions.” Thousands of those same media students, who now work for CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times and many others carry out what they learned in their youthful drunkenness of the university. Lippmann’s philosophy has been eagerly embraced by left leaning professors to shape the minds of those young people in much the same way that Van Jones is attempting in the above clip.

But not everyone bought into the Lippmann idea. Some journalist approached the profession with an open mind, and formed their own opinion, and never lost the ability to think “critically.” Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your position, Fox News attracts those types of “critical” reporters, and the success of that network says everything. The public sees through the smoke.

Want proof? Have a look at this clip from the 9/12 Rally on Washington in September of 2009. Look how many people were there. Yet only Fox was covering it.

Even if Fox put the rally on, which they didn’t, so many people gathered in one place in Washington D.C. was news. Big news! But the networks and newspapers virtually ignored it, as if they hoped to wipe the incident from the minds of the public. Such an act is a form of collective censorship and this is right out in the open. The media was caught with their hands in the cookie jar on this.

There is a force from within our country to subvert us all and convert us into something else. Those that point it out will be labeled as “crazy” “conspiratorial” “delusional” and any number of names designed to discredit the messengers who attempt to wake up the masses.

Lucky for us all at least one media outlet attempted to hold the media role in the proper context, and for that we all have Bill O’Rielly to thank for it. As Fox News rose to power, it was Bill that set the pace with “real” journalism. And Fox built the network around his philosophy.

Now for people like Van Jones, Fox is a threat. Jones certainly isn’t the only one. But in their quest to expand the welfare state, immigration voting blocs and an ever more influential youth, people like him is ultimately doomed to fail.

Once those kids grow up and learn that everything Jones is saying is a lie, those kids will become the conservatives of their parents, and they’ll switch from MTV, to Fox News, unless they lose too many brain cells in the process to ever fully recover. For those types of people, they are lost beyond recovery. But fortunately for the human race, most of those people can be recovered from the depths of their liberal madness.

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

Warrior of the Week: Doc Thompson

The Warrior of the Week is Doc Thompson. I could have made him that for any week prior to this week, because his work is exhaustive. For those of you that don’t know him, he’s the radio personality at 700 WLW from 9 to noon. He also still does his radio show in Richmond Virginia on 1140 WRVA from 3 to 6 PM. That’s two 3 hour radio programs which requires at least 6 to 7 hours of show prep each, reading newspapers, interviewing people, watching the news and taking notes and running things together with the program director, so just those two shows are big deals by themselves. But Doc doesn’t stop there.

He is also heavily involved in Tea Party business. He attends budget meetings at night for city government. He’s been active in learning about School Choice and has come to our meetings. He is extremely active, plus he answers over 200-400 emails a day, many of which he answers with care.

This coming week in addition to everything else he is hosting the Glenn Beck radio program on Tuesday March 8, 2011, 9-noon and Thursday March 10, 2011, 9-noon he can and should be thanked for his fair coverage of the S.B.5 Bill that passed the senate this past week. There were some powerful forces lining up to stop that bill. Some old school Republicans from the “machine politics” were leaning heavy on some of the Senate Republicans to turn away from S.B.5, and if Doc had not dedicated 9 or more hours to the topic over the week leading up to vote, I believe the bill would have failed in the senate.


That’s not to say that Doc Thompson was all one-sided. Doc gave coverage to both sides equally and asked the hard questions so the public could hear the debate, which is a valuable service to all of Ohio. It is not a question that the power of The Big One was being listened to in the offices of those elected officials in Columbus and Doc’s voice was carried clearly over the raving mob outside the State House windows. He was also able to land key interviews that not even the radio legend Bill Cunningham was able to obtain from Senator Shannon Jones. This sample goes on for over an hour and a half, but has the interview with Senator Jones, then goes on for another hour of union caller after union caller attempting to plead their case. It’s fantastic radio. Have a listen.

During last week Doc had on a protestor from the University of Cincinnati to speak against S.B.5. He was a student at the school who organized a rally against S.B.5 prior to the vote. The reason it is a significant interview is that Doc was very kind and fair to the young man, but after asking a number of tough questions, the protestor revealed on the air around the 16:30 minute mark that he was a socialist.

Not to be taken lightly, right after the socialist student, Doc had on Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts almost seamlessly.

For that student to reveal that he was a socialist was important because the unions had been trying to defend themselves all week from radio personalities like Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh who were saying that the universities and union movements were swarming with socialist sympathizers. Even Newt Gingrich had received criticism for accusing President Obama for being a socialist. There are many people in our society that just aren’t ready to deal with the “socialist” word. Parents certainly don’t want to face the fact that they’ve spent much of their adult lives saving up small fortunes to send their kids to college only to be exposed them to socialist principles, so people who make such proclamations are called kooks.

But Doc didn’t call the kid a socialist. The kid called himself one, revealing what many of us already suspected. That kind of revelation on the air with half a million people listening over 38 states and part of Canada has an effect, and suddenly gives the protestors outside the State House a lot less credibility.

Doc could have taken the easy road, and just asked surface questions like the TV News would do, or newspaper interviews. But Doc let Ohio hear the truth behind the mobs from the lips of an organizer.

It is a pleasure to have Doc Thompson in Cincinnati. He is just getting started in this market, and if this is just a preview of what’s to come, I shudder to consider the implications of future influence as he continues to bring truth, justice and the American way to 700 WLW.

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
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Lebanon Gets to Go First: Budget Cuts to Avoid More School District Taxes

Where many people have arrived at in their view of public education is that they believe that the money they are spending currently is a waste of money. The kids don’t seem to be learning anything significant, and the costs just keep increasing. Many people like me want to see some new options. I’m not shy about it. I don’t like the results of public education. I’m happy to pay my fair share for the sake of the rest of the community, but I make a living saving companies money, so it is impossible for me not to sniff out extreme waste when it is so very obvious. And the only reason I get involved is because these wasteful public education organizations are asking me for money, money that comes from my property value, which to me is the same as attempting to rob me while at the same time telling me it’s for my own good.

Doc Thompson seems to feel very similar and talks about it on his radio show at 700 WLW.

As the school boards all across this state prepare to blindly look to the future and campaign for levy passage in order to throw more money into public education in the name of “helping children,” a new chip is being placed on the table to curb those uncontrollable expenses.

Once S.B.5 signed into law, school boards will have the ability to bring down their costs immediately, which means they can drive down their labor costs finally. My guess is that many of these school boards will stall making big decisions and hope that S.B.5 is put on a referendum and defeated in the fall of 2011 so they can avoid any tough decisions. But I have a warning for them that choose to play the game that way………. it will be remembered that the opportunity to substantially lower your costs was put before you, and you did not take advantage of it.

For school districts that plan to play the stall game, and mindlessly ask for yet more school levies, there are further school reforms coming that will guarantee that you will see a declining student body population, such as School Choice and online courses, as options are provided to more and more parents to put their child in alternative forms of education.

The teachers union is aware of this threat to their control. The article below is intent to raise concerns with parents thinking about alternatives, such as online schooling. The lobby campaign against those reforms are already forming. Check out this from The Pulse Journal. Read the whole article here. http://www.pulsejournal.com/news/local-news/skipping-school-can-land-students-parents-in-court-1097694.html

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Skipping school can land students, parents in court

Kids learn hard way, with truancy comes consequences

By Eric Schwartzberg, Staff Writer Updated 10:36 AM Friday, March 4, 2011

WARREN COUNTY — A growing number of students in Warren County are making up time missed in the classroom with time spent in the courtroom.
Truancy rates in the county continue to climb as school districts become more vigilant about reporting unexcused absences. Last school year, more than 5,254 individuals were part of the Warren County Truancy Intervention Program, up from 5,215 in 2008-09 and 5,099 in 2007-08.
Bethany Cole, 16, of Lebanon, started skipping assigned online lessons in 2007.
“I got on virtual (school) in seventh grade and took it for a free-for-all,” she said. “The work was hard and I just didn’t want to do it. I wanted to play with my friends and have fun.”

______________________________________________________________________

 

Translation is this, if you are a working parent and you think your kid can take online courses to get through school, you as a parent may find yourself in trouble with your country Truancy Intervention division, and may have to go to court. It’s a fear tactic to keep people from considering reforms. In the article, it is implied that young Bethany Cole needs a teacher to keep her in line. That’s the intent of the article.

I read the paper every week, and I haven’t seen much on this topic until S.B.5 passed the senate this past week. I know that one of the reforms that will benefit from S.B.5 is coming from State Rep Bill Coley’s online class bill passed during 2010, moving away from brick and mortar class rooms.

Those reforms will happen; it’s already in the works and is signed into law. This reform happened under Governor Strickland. The unions know it, so they will attempt to plant fears in parents from attempting any school reform. So there will be many more fear tactics attempted by the union to attempt futilely in keeping the world as it’s always been for those unions, but to no avail. The old games will not work any more.

Now there will be those that will accuse me of reading too much into the timing of the above article by Eric. All I’ll say to you is that you are naive and don’t understand the process if you think the timing of that article is not intentional. Such games are no longer going to occur with impunity. I’m not the only one looking at things like this now. School district budgets are going to have to change and adapt because competitive options are going to be implemented in education.

For the Lakota School District I have put out a plan for dealing with their budget deficit issues. Check it out here.

All districts should demand that the unions come to the table and reduce their wages proportionally taking a pay cut to bring their costs to the budget revenue supplied by the community. At Lakota I proposed a 30% cut that would instantly generate 27 million dollars. No further levy would be required, and no lay-off of teachers. All courses could still be offered as they always have. The only thing that would change is teachers would be paid less, something more in line with everyone else in the community. They are paid right now 62K per year. A 30% across the board reduction would make the average 43K per year. The median income in West Chester, which is within the Lakota School District, is $97,971. If you don’t know what median means, median income is the amount which divides the income distribution into two equal groups, half having income above that amount, and half having income below that amount. Mean income (average) is the amount obtained by dividing the total aggregate income of a group by the number of units in that group. The means and medians for households and families are based on all households and families. Means and medians for people are based on people 15 years old and over with income. In short for the purpose of statistics in this case it is a husband and a wife working making $48,985.50 each. In Liberty Twp, which is the other Twp in the Lakota District the median income is $88,105 which divided by two is $44,052.50 per working resident. Many of the people working in the Lakota School District have college degrees and advanced degrees. Such measures do not guarantee automatic pay increases of 70K to 90K per year as the teaching profession believes. School boards, asking teachers to live within the wages of the community are not unreasonable and needs to be implemented immediately. I hate to use teachers in this example, but they do make up a majority of the labor costs. Administrators, many of which are well over the 80K wage range must be looked at for their usefulness. Do they contribute directly to the education of children or are they just cruising through the system? School boards are well aware of who adds value and who doesn’t, and needs to act on that information to bring costs in line. There will of course be employees that will threaten to leave if they are asked to take a pay cut. Well, let them go, because where they are going will have to do the same, and if they are dumb enough to leave a good school district for another just because of money, then they aren’t worth the money to begin with because they are not in the profession for all the right reasons.

Now my primary occupation is bringing costs down in business. It is very hard to sit across the table from someone and tell them that they aren’t worth as much money as they believe they are. It is very, very hard. But a good manager will see through the tears and the hard emotions to do what’s right for the company, because it is the company that provides revenue to all its workers. So the health of the company is very important and cannot be top heavy with excess costs. It’s for the good of the upset worker that proclaims that they are not paid enough, to restrict them for the health of the company that they work for in order to protect their job over the long run.

These unions and school districts that have been run by the unions won’t like stepping back and will attempt any kind of emotional argument to proclaim why teachers and administrators are worth 30% more than every other profession. They’ll throw out all kinds of numbers but the reality is that they don’t know what is going on outside of their specialized bubbles. They have for years been their own management ruling over the elected school boards and have given themselves outlandish pay increases without regard for reality.

For those members of the unions the warning to them is this, drag your feet and fight the process all you want. Work hard to get S.B.5 on a referendum and overturned by the voters in November if you want. Try all you want to convince tax payers to keep throwing money in your direction, because what will happen within years, not decades, but years, is the entire system will go bankrupt. Those superintendents and teachers that are close to retirement won’t care. They will hope to hold off the tide until their retirements and they can escape the system with their wheel barrel of money. But for those of you that are in your late 30’s and 40’s, you’re in big trouble, because the system will collapse well before you get to retirement.

Don’t believe me, I wrote it down here for all to see forever, so prove me wrong in the future? At Lakota in 2003 the average wage at Lakota was 48K per year. In 2011 it is as we said 62K. There was one levy approval and two strike threats for more money and benefits over an eight year period and the average wages went up by 14K per year.

I use Lakota because that’s a district I’m failure with. But similar circumstances can be found in virtually every school district in Ohio. I am envious that Lebanon will be the first to be able to use the benefits of S.B.5 to avoid a levy all together. Because now their school board will have the tools to truly bring their costs in line and avoid putting the tax payers through a levy. They will have the opportunity to teach all the districts in Southern Ohio how to proceed in such a process and will always be known as the first to do so. Because of S.B.5, there is no reason for a levy, as planned. The school board will now have the power to regulate their labor costs, and that is an exciting prospect for the tax payers.

Little Miami is in the same situation. They are now able to deal with regulating their costs in ways they never dreamed of, and if they have the courage and commitment, can save their district.

But to those that those union types that are clinging to the past, and hoping to press upon communities to pass more levies and further the tax burden on property owners, you are in for a hard lesson. Calling people names because they don’t want to raise taxes on themselves will no longer work. The days where you have twisted the arms of communities are over. S.B.5 is not a radical right-winged conspiracy against the left. It is an urgent attempt to operate on a cancer that is eating away our public education system and restoring balance to local communities from the centralized power of union influence. And I S.B.5 is not used by school boards, or if voters in Ohio vote the bill down in a referendum then the system will bleed itself dry soon and nobody will have anything.

And when that day comes, don’t say you weren’t warned and that people didn’t stand up and attempt to save it, because we did. And the unions stood in the way and caused their own demise, because they were too stupid and arrogant to see that they desperately need the operation.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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Who Had the Guts to Vote for S.B.5: and who didn’t

Enjoy the following video which describes the plight of the union worker.

Regarding the passage of S.B.5 in the Ohio State Senate these are the senators that voted for the bill.

1. Bacon
2. Beagle
3. Cates
4. Daniels
5. Faber
6. Gillmor
7. Hite
8. Jones
9. Jordan
10. LaRose
11. Lehner
12. Obhof
13. Schaffer
14. Stewart
15. Wagoner
16. Widener
17. Niehaus

Those who voted no to the bill were:

1. Brown
2. Cafaro
3. Grendell
4. Hughes
5. Kearney
6. Manning
7. Oelslager
8. Patton
9. Sawyer
10. Schiavoni
11. Seitz
12. Skindell
13. Smith
14. Tavares
15. Turner
16. Wilson

The 6 Republicans who voted against it: Jim Hughes, Tim Grendell, Bill Seitz, Scott Oelslager, Jim Hughes & Gayle Manning, surely had their reasons. But it will be remembered.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
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Blame the Rich: The Marketing Stategy of Socialism

As much as Senator Capri Cafaro championed herself during the S.B.5 debates in Columbus as a representative of the “working people,” she is a perfect example of the type of politician that does one thing while intending another. Here she is grabbing attention during Governor Kasich’s inauguration bragging about how “conservative” she is.

Here she is just a few weeks later pandering to a mob curtailing her political influence.

Who is Capri Cafaro? Well, Doc Thompson digs into the issue during his March 2, 2011 broadcast on 700 WLW.  He talks about her right around the 21 minute mark in the video below.

That’s right, she’s RICH, very, very rich, from a wealthy powerful family.

It is strange how she, and people like her, manage to hide that fact when they are trying to drum up support from the “working people,” who never see that “The Rich” are pretty evenly stacked on both sides of the political spectrum. Yet the way it’s presented to people who are not motivated to do their own research is all the rich are on the right, and that if they were taxed more, then all the worlds’ problems would be solved.

What these manipulators don’t tell people is that the real strategy is something else all together.

It is an easy target to point to the rich and proclaim with anger that they should pay more so those at the bottom can have more. For this reason, socialism will always be an attractive option for a certain percentage of the population that has a tendency toward laziness.

In fact, here is how the protests against S.B.5 are portrayed by Liberation News, a socialist publication that is of course adding fire to the situation in Columbus.

Here is the link to the original article listed below:
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/victory-to-the-ohio-workers.html

___________________________
Tax the rich and corporations
Ohio corporations get away with paying one of the lowest tax rates in the country, while the people of Ohio suffer because state and local budgets lack funds to pay for needed services. The budget crisis could easily be solved by taxing the rich and the corporations.

GE is one of the largest employers in Ohio. It would have had to pay at a 22 percent tax rate in 2009, but it can deduct massive profits that they make overseas. GE has $84 billion in overseas income held outside the United States. So, it paid no federal income taxes that year and may have gotten over $1 billion as a refund.

While the right wing is trying to use the budget crisis as the excuse to batter the people providing essential services, the truth is that the working people did not cause the crisis. The budget deficits come from actions by banks and the money spent on wars for Big Oil.

—————————————————————————————————————

The problem with the whole Robin Hood Theory, “take from the rich, give to the poor, is that it is misleading.

It’s not about fairness, as it’s disguised. It is all about attempting to capitalize on a natural jealousy that exists between those that have, and those that don’t in favor of an entirely new political idea rooted in socialism.

The reality is that the left, and the socialist leaning left are heavily funded by the rich. In fact, when the Progressive Party held their convention in 1912 it was made up almost entirely of the wealthy that felt guilt and entitlement due to their wealth and desired to use their wealth to reshape the world into a more just and fair society.

People like George Soros and many other very wealthy citizens, particularly in the Hollywood left, pour millions and millions of dollars into the propaganda of socialism, and they are very aware of what they’re doing. In fact, I covered recently in another article that Soros has worked to help fund Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute which is behind the famous Sundance Institute, very popular with documentary films. In fact Soros has personally helped finance a film that attacks capitalism called Better this World.

It is ironic that such people have the audacity to point at the conservative right and blame the rich for all the worlds’ troubles. It is the communist rich that manipulates what they perceive to be the weak, mindless followers of their message, and attack their capitalist rivals, the conservatives.

Yet anybody that understands economics knows that taxing the rich and giving to the poor will only destroy the economy. Because by nature, the rich are not motivated to continue innovating and providing business expertise if there isn’t the promise of gain.


The pursuit of fairness is an audacious exercise in human manipulation. When given too much power, unions have proven to be just as corrupt as corporations ever were, so the experiment has failed both ways. The only protection against both factions is provided in the Constitution’s 10th Amendment. Through states rights, and less centralized power to the federal government, citizens can participate in their government and control much of the corruption that is inevitable.

Here is the ideologue of socialism Michael Moore. He is one of the biggest cheerleaders of this “tax the rich” idea of wealth redistribution.

Yet this is what the average person thinks about the situation in Wisconsin. It becomes obvious very quick that the normal people out there are responding to the situation not based on how issues affect them, but based on what they’ve been told to feel.

It is unfortunate that many people fall as such easy targets from the greedy shape shifters of public opinion and find themselves soldiers of an invisible army, because the intentions of those shape shifters are easy to see for anybody willing to look.

Pointing to the “rich” and fostering anger and jealously is the strategy of the deceiver intent on rebuilding the world into a new and corrupt society. That corrupt society is avoidable, but only if the participants of that society seek to do for themselves and avoid the lucrative blanket of socialism, and avoid the temptation of manipulative judgment.

Those of you that chant, “workers rights,” and “tax the rich,” are only pawns to a game you are not motivated to play, so you’ll find yourselves “played” time and time again to the detriment of American civilization.

Rich Hoffman

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

Socialism is Being Taught at a College Near You: Or didn’t you know that?

While America struggles with its self-image, those hostile to American values are revealing themselves.

Today, February 28, 2011 during the Doc Thompson show, Doc had on a student protestor that is organizing a rally at the University of Cincinnati that will included college professors standing against S.B.5.

The interview was very insightful. Of course the young man was nervous, and Doc was very nice to him, helping along through the interview. But what was unique about the interview as Doc continued to ask questions that the student couldn’t answer, was the arguments of the student broke down and he revealed his true political thoughts.

The kid came straight out and announced that he was a socialist.

Now the next question that comes to mind is where did this young fellow come up with this idea? How out of our public education system did he develop socialism as a virtuous political ideal?

We already know the answer. Many of the professors that will be marching on the University of Cincinnati will in private call themselves socialists as well. And I think it’s time to have the conversation that a large part of the United States voting population are self described socialists, and many of them hide that title behind the Democratic Party, and they are typically employed in the public sector, because it suits their view of the world.

It is important to understand what people truly are because it will explain the rationality behind their voting patterns. Now professional pundits in the political landscape are very clever in hiding their socialist love. So getting them to admit to it is difficult because they know that most Americans are weary of the term. However, young students who are being taught socialism as a real option while their minds are fertile ground for planting such thoughts are not so slick in hiding their intentions. And when pressed, the kid came out and professed to the world what he was and what he wanted.

So when we see these marches that are against, “union busting,” many of the people marching lean in the direction of socialism. They may not understand that is what their ideology is because they have been taught and have never questioned their thoughts against reality. For instance, a teacher that comes straight out of college might think like this young man in the interview. And then they are employed in a school system where the culture is controlled by a powerful union that philosophize about the same thing the teacher learned in college and that teacher never has to bounce their ideals off the real world.

Now compare that to the student who comes out of college, and gets a job in the private sector. Within a few years, that young student is going to learn how tough the world is, and by the time they get on the north side of 30 years old, they are beginning to vote Republican and are becoming the conservatives that their parents were. The reason is, the socialist, utopia that college professors speak so highly about in their round about way, doesn’t work when tested against life. And it never does and it never will.

China has been able to make it work for a time because we’ve helped feed their economy. But think about the land mass and total resources of the Soviet Union and China compared to everyone else, and both those countries using socialism as their fundamental political philosophy. They have not been able to flourish as an economy without the help of the United States. What does that say?

It is detrimental and actually childish to continue to listen to advocates within the United States on economic matters who lean in a socialist direction. If they want to think with socialist leanings they are more than welcome. They can work whatever job they have and think what they want. But they are not allowed to wreck our economy over idealism.

Listen to more from David Horowitz says on this issueThis is taken from one of his seminars.








Rich Hoffman

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

The Overton Window and The Jonestown Tragedy: Richard Trumka’s Progressive Push

I’ve said it many times, I read a lot. A whole lot. And over 2010 one of the books that most jumped out at me was Glenn Beck’s The Overton Window. My daughter had bought it for me for Father’s Day and I read it in one day.

I hear people like Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO talk about the “RIGHT WING” and you hear what comes out of his mouth and you have to wonder about his sanity. As far as a union leader, and a person close to the White House, which he says he speaks to daily, I would be ashamed if that guy where my boss or leader. He clearly doesn’t understand basic economics and its people like him that create the message that millions of union workers chant.

Here is Trumka speaking in March of 2009. He has no idea how the bill he’s speaking about will “expand” the middle class, and he doesn’t have any idea how this will drive up the labor costs. He just makes statements that people seem to blindly following without question. Something he accuses Beck and other people primarily on the political right of doing.

You can read here how he believes the best way to expand the middle class is through further taxation. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/afl-cio-boss-raising-taxes-is-best-way-to-create-jobs/

America is supposed to be a group of individuals, not a unified collective sum like Trumka speaks about. The Federalist Papers, which went on to become The Constitution were written to protect American from people like Trumka, and Obama. Those people and people like them taken by themselves are not bad people, but they have a dangerous ideology and they disguise it with a message the masses can understand. So it is not a far stretch to say that when I saw Trumka speak on February 26, 2011 that the best way to create jobs was to raise taxes, which I know from economics is false, yet people chant and cheer in approval, and I witnessed the union protests all across the country, it reminded me of Jim Jones, of the Jonestown massacre from 1978. Jones had several thousand supporters that followed him from Indianapolis Indiana, to San Francisco, then to Guyana South America. Jones was an admirer of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. That’s why they chanted this song at their church rallies in the early 70’s.

Jim Jones is a tough story to swallow. Because it is the extreme example of what collectivism can inflict on people. Jones was a proud socialist. What you are about to hear is the actual death tape from the Jonestown Massacre. Jones turned on a tape recorder and gave a final speech while his thousands of followers drank poisoned drink to their deaths. He calls it “revolutionary suicide” to an inhuman world. You will actually hear people perishing in the background, so if you have a soft stomach, don’t listen to this. This behavior is far from a joke. If you listen you will hear several people step forward and speak about the greatness of Jim Jones, their “Daddy,” and of the merits of socialism and communism.
The following clip is from the film The Guyana Tragedy and is a reenactment of what you will hear below.

Here is the actual death tapes. Now consider as you listen to this, these people speaking are just moments from their death. They know it. Listen to their thoughts and what they intend.



So what is the lesson here? Well, madmen have a way of lying to themselves and distorting the reality of the world around them. And such people are attracted to socialism, communism, progressivism and all those collective “ism’s.” At that point it no longer becomes a simple argument about economics and the best way to handle economic issues. It evolves into a struggle between good and evil.

That’s where I start seeing startling comparisons from people in the modern labor movement. What they are saying are simply the words their leaders speak.  Richard Trumka is a powerful union leader and in this recent case involving these labor protests, what he says in public, over a microphone, ends up coming out of the mouths of his followers.

Trumka, like many people attracted to those “collective ideologies” are prone to climb for power. History shows that it happens in every case. I don’t know of a single instance of a collective society that survives outside of a tribal village. The individuality inherit in the human being seems to break down true collectivism, and social experiments to water this tendency down in our youth have failed with terrible results. This is the reason the Tea Party has risen as a permanent movement, because many people are just tired of the “social experiments.” Many want to return to the original blue print that paved the way for the greatest nation on earth.

The Tea Party is a push back against the tendency of “collectivism” that has gotten out of control.

Whether or not he is aware of it or not, Trumka’s actions show that he is power-hungry and idealistic, and is essentially no different from someone like Jim Jones. It is quite possible that if that congressman from California had not went to Jonestown and been killed, Jim Jones and his followers would have lived for years without a mass suicide. But the scary thing about it is that Jones had to retreat to South America to have his utopian society. And the congressman was doing in that society much of what the Tea Party is trying to do in American Society. They are intervening and attempting to break up the dangerous collectivism that is consuming the nation.

Progressives are insistent in the modern age to not leave the country for their utopian society. They instead are intent to change the country itself. Here Trumka reveals what he is all about, which concerns me a great deal. It concerns me because watching his followers on Saturday; they seem to think he truly believes in this whole “middle class” protection. Yet he states otherwise.

Now this doesn’t mean Trumka is just like Jim Jones. Jones when he was in Indiana seemed like a reasonable guy. Thousands and thousands of people wouldn’t have followed him if they thought the path would take them to their sweaty deaths in a South American jungle within a decade. But Trumka’s followers behave almost identically to the congregation of Jim Jones, and that is what is troublesome.

Watch and listen to these clips from the Saturday Protests. And compare the behavior to what you heard from Jim Jones’s Congregation.







This brings me back to the Overton window concept introduced in Beck’s book. People can say what they want about Glenn Beck, but from what I know about the guy, he genuinely wants to get at the truth. His agenda is the truth. And that’s why he wrote his book, The Overton Window.

As I was reading The Overton Window, I realized that here is a guy that Time Magazine called the most dangerous man in American. Here is a guy hated by all these various progressive groups. Here is a guy that has become massively popular in a very short period of time. Here is a guy that has an agent that is very liberal. Here is a guy that knows a few rich people yet has not forgotten his humanity. Here is a guy that has hit the bottom, and realizes that it’s the little things in life that makes things precious. Here is a guy that would never, ever, under any circumstances be a Jim Jones. He might have the power to be, but he would not sub come to it. Glenn Beck is the kind of man who you could put a pile of gold in his lap, ask him to watch it for you till you come back, and when you returned 2 years later, he’d give it back without anything missing. Since he has a unique insight to how the game is played at the level he’s at now, the book, The Overton Window is a particularly rare opportunity for a reader. And I found the book and its concepts uniquely rich. It may not be the most profound literary work in history. But it is very bold in its attempt and it succeeds. What it is successful in doing is capturing the confusing political landscape that we are currently involved with revealing through a cleaver story what drives all the groups involved in creating their own Overton window that will pull society in their desired direction.
Here is the definition and description of what a Overton Window is as described in Wikipedia.

The Overton window, in political theory, describes a “window” in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph P. Overton.

At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered to be politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too “extreme” or outside the mainstream to gain or keep public office. Overton arranged the spectrum on a vertical axis of “more free” and “less free” in regards to government intervention. When the window moves or expands, ideas can accordingly become more or less politically acceptable. The degrees of acceptance of public ideas can be described roughly as:

• Unthinkable
• Radical
• Acceptable
• Sensible
• Popular
• Policy

The Overton Window is a means of visualizing which ideas define that range of acceptance by where they fall in it. Proponents of policies outside the window seek to persuade or educate the public so that the window either “moves” or expands to encompass them. Opponents of current policies, or similar ones currently within the window, likewise seek to convince people who these should be considered unacceptable.

Other formulations of the process created after Overton’s death add the concept of moving the window, such as deliberately promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous “outer fringe” ideas, with the intention of making the current fringe ideas acceptable by comparison.
__________________________________________________

This site has an interesting twist on The Overton Window by describing it in four planes instead of just left and right, which I like.
http://www.correntewire.com/the_overton_window_has_four_panes

What these extreme left groups have done over time is they pulled the Overton window radically to the left with key phrases like, “workers’ rights” and “tax the rich.” Or “all conservatives are Hitler.” 100 years ago at the start of the progressive movement these ideas were considered radical. But in the election of 1912, Eugene V.Debs had doubled the Socialist vote from 500,000 in 1908 to 1 million in 1912. This wasn’t some guy from Europe; he was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. In fact, the Socialists had their 1912 Convention in Indianapolis; the same place Jim Jones started his socialist church. Ronald Reagan toyed with joining the socialist party when he was a young man in Hollywood. It was after he traveled to England and witnessed what socialism had done to England through the Labor Party that he turned far to the right, out of fear for his country. But those people, those 1 million people who voted socialist in 1912 are out there, and they attached themselves to progressive ideas, they had children, raised families and found themselves drawn to the Labor Movement in America on the backs of the unions. Now many of those people aren’t bad people, but they are attracted to the collectivism of socialist concepts by their family culture and genetic make-up, because let’s face it, some people are more comfortable hiding in the masses and are not inclined to stand on their own.

Those poor, unfortunate souls are the people who end up following someone like Jim Jones in the extreme circumstance. And to a lesser degree, they find themselves repeating word for word what someone like Richard Trumka utters, without any care as to the relevance of his words. Trumka knows he can’t talk to an economist about how he represents the “middle class” or how “increasing taxes on the rich,” “creates jobs.” Those are just buzz words to stir up the followers. What Trumka is really after is moving the Overton window far to the left as was the trend during the entire 20th century. It happened because people weren’t aware of the threat and it just crept into our culture subtly. Trumka said it himself; he’s not in the labor movement for wages and benefits. He’s using the labor movement as a platform to change society, and that isn’t any different from Jim Jones who wanted to change the world through religion.

The Tea Party wants none of that non-sense. The Tea Party wants people like Trumka off our back, and wants to pull the Overton window back to the far right so that the recoil will leave the political spectrum back in the middle where it belongs. The caution is there because half the nation isn’t drinking the cool-aid of Trumka. Half is, roughly. The problem is that other half are made up of people who have evolved to expect an entitlement culture, so those aren’t the kind of people who will carry a nation by themselves. They’ll need a fanatical leader to lead them. The Tea Party has no such leader. Glenn Beck could disappear tomorrow and someone like Doc Thompson in Cincinnati would just take his place, or maybe the young man in the radio broadcast above. The movement is essentially leaderless, because it is built upon the ideas of self-reliance, which was what America was intended to be.

The real threat and real money being poured into politics isn’t coming from Rupert Murdoch, or the Koch Brothers. George Soros, and all the Hollywood left has poured far more money into political manipulation so there isn’t any room to talk. Yet if Trumka says “the conservative right is for the rich, and we are for the working man!” Look at all these contributors to the radical left! Yet all these people point to the right and say it’s “Wall Street, the rich, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, all are blamed for manipulating the American people when in fact it is these people that have committed the act of their accusations.

“The working man” is another false premise captured by the labor movement and placed into the minds of Americans by the Overton window. In Ohio 655,000 people work for a union, both public and private. That’s only 13.7 percent of the 4,787,000 million people who are employed in the state. That leaves over 4 million people not represented by a union, and don’t particularly want to be represented by a union. And most of those people are not in management. Most of those people are the real workers, and is proof that such extreme rhetoric as exhibited by people like Trumka to an army of people built on entitlement. Yet, because of the Overton window, the media, and the regular everyday people accept that “workers’ rights” represents union work, because that’s how the term was marketed.

The times we live in have these two ideologies colliding before us. And unlike in the past, people will have to choose. One side is the side of life, and one side is the side of doom. So we must choose and choose wisely. Because the time has passed where both sides can’t coexist together now that the radicals have made a move and shown their intentions.

Rich Hoffman

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

S.B.5 Would Have Saved $1.3 Billion in 2010: Yet the OEA says it’s teachers will suffer when the average teacher makes 55K?

The picture here refers to a report from the Columbus Dispatch which cites that if S.B.5 had been enacted during 2010, the state would have saved 1.3 Billion dollars. That’s a massive figure!

Darryl Parks of 700 WLW talks about the savings S.B.5 would have saved, and addresses the hypocrites within the Tea Party Movement that are now complaining about some of the budget cuts they pushed for.

You can see the whole article for the Columbus Dispatch here.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/02/26/senate-bill-5-saves-1-3b-study-says.html?sid=101

Most of the savings are not a direct savings to the state, but an indirect cost imposed by “step increases” which is the primary reason I am supporting S.B.5. At Lakota, as I’ve stated many times, the average teacher makes over 62K . When you study the reason Lakota, Mason, Lebanon and all the other large Southern Ohio districts need a levy passed, it is because the districts have to live up to their rising costs imposed by the “step increases” required by state law. So when I asked the question, “why can’t Lakota live within their 160 million dollar budget? Why can’t Lakota cut salaries since they are obviously inflated, and leave busing alone, keep the sports, keep the electives, don’t lay off teachers?” The response was, “we can’t, because we are obligated by state law.”

Step increases are the hidden villain here. I calculated that if the teachers at Lakota took a 30% reduction, which is reasonable considering what they are making, it would save Lakota $29 million a year which would mean the district wouldn’t have to ask for more money in an operating levy.

I’ve written about this elsewhere and if you want to see the other article click the link. 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 who your competition is hiring at the middle 80%, and you want that so you can maintain a competitive edge.

That’s the reason the teachers are protesting. Because their union knows the scam that they’ve been playing against the tax payer is falling apart now that their cost to society has reached a breaking point. Their strategy all along was to continue to push for higher taxes to pay for their scam and they had full confidence based on their track record over the last two decades that they’d achieve that goal. Now, compare what you’ve learned here about step increases, and the imposed cost to the tax payer, and the amount of money teachers are making on average, and then look at Patricia Frost-Brooks, President of the OEA, comments in that same mentioned article from The Dispatch.

“If you lower the wages, and your health insurance goes up, then what does that do to a family? How is the family going to sustain their livelihood?” said Patricia Frost-Brooks, president of the Ohio Education Association.

What planet is she living on? Doesn’t she realize that her teachers are making A LOT more money than the average worker in Ohio? You can read more about Patricia’s view of the world at http://www.progressohio.org/blog/2010/09/lets-revitalize-ohio-not-go-backwards-by-ohio-education-association-president-patricia-frost-brooks.html Notice she doesn’t mention much about kids in that article. Only politics.

Patricia goes into great detail attempting to demean Governor Kasich before the election. The OEA is a lobby group in Columbus where Patricia Frost-Brooks is president of the Ohio Education Association, a statewide union representing 130,000 members in k-12 schools, public colleges and universities and education support professionals. So when you listen to what she says, consider that she has one primary job and that is to protect her members. And in her view, she if protecting her members by driving up their wages, paying them very well, so they will have the expendable income to give back some to her lobby group. It’s that simple.

She accuses Kasich of misleading. She makes that assumption based on her own actions, so she assumes that the rest of the world is playing the same game, and they aren’t. Patricia reveals much of herself in that Progress Ohio Article. She is against school reform, she is against reducing the salaries of teachers to help districts deal with their costs, and she genuinely believes that somehow education costs can continue to expand as they have forever. She is completely out of touch, and if she’s the leader of the union, and is one of the most “rational” minds, then what do the “rank and file” believe? Where do they think all the money comes from? Do they not have a basic understanding of economics?

But Tom Ash, director of governmental development for the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, said school boards may not do away with all automatic pay increases.

“At milestones during their career, I think there should be step increases in an attempt to retain those people because you don’t want to lose them,” he said. “But the notion that you should do it every year, I don’t know that that’s necessary when you’re also providing an increase on the base salary.”

Mr. Ash is speaking my language. That’s the reality of the situation. For some teachers that are exceptional, I’ll use Lakota as an example, like Mr. Duff, who is a science teacher that I think is great, I don’t want to see him go anywhere. I’d be happy to tell the school board to throw money at a teacher like that. He should make 70 to 80K per year. But for every teacher like him, there are 4 or 5 that are just cruising through their careers, and they do not deserve to make more than 55K per year, no matter how much education they obtain for themselves.

You have to understand that this whole thing is a system. The OEA for years has lobbied to create legislation that creates incentives for teachers to obtain a master’s degree. For many teachers, obtaining a master’s degree is practical and necessary. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 52 percent of teachers hold a master’s degree or higher. Although some states require teachers to obtain master’s degrees, teachers often seek advanced degrees to increase their salaries and obtain new skills.

Read more: Requirements for a Master’s in Teaching | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6388286_requirements-master_s-teaching.html#ixzz1FA2fulvD

There is a reason Patricia and the OEA wants its teachers to have a master’s degree. That is because the OEA also represent teachers who work for universities and if every teacher working in Ohio continues their education and gets a master’s degree so they can qualify for the financial rewards of obtaining that degree then the money funneled into the colleges can help pay the salaries of the professors staffed at those institutions. It’s what the “working people” in know would call, “job security.” The OEA knows that their teachers at the K-12 level are likely to seek that higher degree if they can afford it with good wages to begin with, but the promise of even higher wages are at the end of that degree. Here are the tuition costs at Ohio State, as listed at their website.
Estimated Costs for U.S. Students

All costs are subject to change without notice. A complete list of quarterly tuition charges by program may be found at the Office of the Registrar’s website. http://gradadmissions.osu.edu/Costs.html

• $11,298 – tuition cost for a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, aslyee, or refugee and a legal resident of the State of Ohio;
• $28,746 – tuition cost for a US citizen, permanent resident, aslyee, or refugee whose residence is outside of Ohio;
• $13,980 – estimated annual expenses for room, board, insurance, books and supplies

The truth of the matter is it’s all about money. It’s always been about money, and it’s a game played at the tax payers’ expense and it has to stop.

Look at this ad from “Teacher World” which is a teacher recruiting website.

With an average teacher salary of $55,931,* teaching in Ohio is a great career choice. Whether you like bustling cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland or state capital Columbus, or prefer smaller towns or rural communities, Ohio has it all. Learn about teaching in Ohio on Teacher World.
http://www.teacher-world.com/statespages/Ohio.html

 

The OEA knows what it’s doing. It’s a shell game. They manage to obtain for their teachers above average wages so they can funnel some of that money into the higher education system. They also have to create the incentive for teachers to make more than enough money so they won’t suffer when they must pay their union dues, because the OEA needs that money to lobby elected officials and participate in the political system.

During this entire process, the OEA has managed to wrestle control away from school boards all over the state so that this financial balance cannot be upset by local communities not wanting to pay outrageous taxes. The school boards are brought into the shell game each November when they attend the OSBA, (Ohio School Board Association) event in Columbus.
http://www.ohioschoolboards.org/osba-capital-conference

 

Check out this video. This is how they sell it.

Once the school board members are taught what they can and can’t cover as board members, the implementations that are put in place by the OEA are safe from scrutiny. This is why the first and only thing school boards are allowed to deal with are the costs associated with direct operating expenditures, which only occupy under 20% of a school district budget. Notice how many times teachers and administrators mention in that video that the only hug a child gets in a day or hot meal they eat comes from the school system. It is ironic that they sell their service and the necessity for the massive amount of money flowing within it by creating the perception that they are the only chance kids have for success in life.

Yet, the message is effective, and the employees believe what they are told from leadership. One person that believed the message was Ryan Fahrenkempt who was teaching at Lakota last year before being forced to resign in August of 2010. As a Lakota educator, Fahrenkamp hosted a science day for students and was featured in a newspaper article about the shortage of male teachers in the elementary classroom.

He was quoted in the 2008 article while he was teaching sixth-grade at the former Shawnee Elementary School.
“I think that boys at this age need that male influence outside just the home,” he said. “In some cases, they don’t get that in the home,” Fahrenkamp said.
http://www.oxfordpress.com/news/crime/former-teacher-in-federal-court-on-child-porn-charges-1044534.html

Oh, he wasn’t the only one. Just one month later the Mason School System had this happen.

How did Stacy Schuler see herself and her role as a teacher? Schuler said she isn’t perfect and she knows of a healthier lifestyle than she is living now. “I used to wake up earlier to come in [to the school] and work out,” Schuler said. “But I just wasn’t getting enough sleep, and as much as I preach a healthy lifestyle, I would say I’m not a good example of a healthy lifestyle right now.”
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/who-is-stacy-schuler-reading-between-the-lines/

What do the parents think about this behavior?  Listen to a mom read a note from her son during the last school board meeting in Mason, Feb 22nd 2011.  Her son went to Mason several years ago, he graduated in 2007.  This proves that the recent news went on for quite some time.  The woman’s testimony is at approximately the 1/4 mark of the video.  George Coates named in this video was the AP who’s genitals were found on Stacy Schuler’s computer upon her arrest and was a direct supervisor to Ms. Schuler.

http://www.icrctv.net/mason-board-of-education-22211

And it’s happening all over the country. That video you saw from the OSBA, about how school is the only safe haven for many kids is completely misleading. Parents have to be more involved in their kids’ lives. Money will not make that issue go away, because we cannot trust our kids completely to school systems. There are a lot of good people who work within the system, but schools are not the utopia’s that the OSBA envisions and tries to sell to its members.

Click this link to visit a page that attempts to capture all the school scandals in the country. Just pick a city. http://www.schoolteachernews.com/scandal.html

Parents must be an important part of a kid’s life. Schools have sold themselves as an option while busy parents conduct their lives, and in the chaos, people like Patricia, of the OEA, and Governor Strickland, pandering to union money has manipulated tax payers into funding their personal social agendas. And the experiment has been a terrible, miserable failure. Not only is the per pupil spending in Ohio at 10k per student that money has done nothing to prepare children for the world marketplace. MTV is proving to be the stronger influence among young people, and kids get that information for free. The education reforms that Patricia fears so vehemently, like competition with school vouchers, and competitive salaries controlled by school boards, are coming because the OEA have been caught not doing what is right for the children and the communities that send their children to their care every day. Public school is a valuable asset, but is producing at a mediocre level. Not at the level that the wages being asked for dictate. The OEA has attempted to cover that fact with smoke and flashy imagery. But they are the failures behind the curtain. Remember the Wizard of Oz? Patricia is the one behind the curtain in this particular case.

What S.B.5 will do is it will save tax money indirectly, with anticipated increases that used to be mandated by the state will now be controlled at the local level, where tax payers can help the school board adjust their costs to the supplied budget. And it will take control away from the shell game that the OEA has been conducting for years.

That’s why S.B.5 is a great bill. And it’s also why the OEA is so steadfast against it. It’s all about control and manipulation. That’s what Kasich means when he says he wants to return “management control” to local communities. That’s how the economics of the state get balanced and why Ohio can be a model for how the United States as a country should function. We cannot allow a central authority driven by union manipulation to drive up the costs of education in our communities, like it is now. That central authority has to be removed as an influence because they are not elected by the tax payer, yet act as a government authority. The experiment has failed terribly, and it’s time to try a method that puts the responsibility on the local community, and allows competition to do its work of driving costs down, in this case up to 1.3 Billion just for the impact of S.B.5 alone, and make the best and brightest employees excel while the mediocre stay in a budget range that does not destroy the ability of the community to fund them.

The question is, will the communities of Ohio allow themselves to see through the smoke screens and do what is obviously right or will they choose to allow themselves to be scammed by a ruthless adversary. Only time will tell.

Rich Hoffman

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