I’ve been involved with literary driven “think-tanks” for several occasions in years past covering everything from James Joyce to Thomas Mann. All those authors were wonderful in their own way, even the collectivist Victor Hugo and Russian recluse Leo Tolstoy. But they were not as good as Ayn Rand who changed the literary narrative with her larger-than-life characters. Rand’s characters are not like Marvel Comics superheroes, they are every day people lacking magical powers, but they are non-the-less super. They are an inspiration to all who ever wanted to be a superhero as a corporate businessman or woman—and continue to resonate particularly in America as a mold to follow. Ayn Rand is one of the most prolific and most important writers in American history which is saying a lot. Her work of most importance was Atlas Shrugged and began as a kind of science fiction fantasy in 1957 and has proven itself to be astonishingly prophetic in 2014 just prior to the third release of a movie adoption based on John Aglialoro’s interpretation of the novel. The movie hits theaters on September 12th, but the book continues to sell, and sell, and sell because the content which appeared sensational at first—and unrealistic is occurring almost on queue just as Rand always thought it would. The producers of the new movie have put together a wonderful little documentary which features clips from the new film seen below called Atlas Shrugged: Now, Non-Fiction and is well worth watching. In addition to clips from ASP3, this video includes commentary from liberty leaders including Ron Paul, Matt Kibbe, Jonathan Hoenig, Phil Valentine, David Kelley and more.
Atlas Shrugged is not for everyone. It is however for the kind of people who work hard and try every day to be the best they can be. If you are the kind of employee who usually works later at the office and is the first to arrive in the morning—you will like Atlas Shrugged. If you are the kind of person who runs over rate in a union shop—even though there is intense opposition against you for doing so, Atlas Shrugged is for you. If you are the kind of person who is constantly hounded by family and friends to step down off your “high horse” so that you are more “likable” and approachable, you will like and enjoy Atlas Shrugged. However, if you are the kind of person who hates those who do all or even part of the above—you will hate Atlas Shrugged and will do everything in your power to disgrace the literary work from being recognized as a literary endeavor.
For the same reason that the co-worker who feels guilty by leaving the office before the star of the company does attempts to put pressure on that person by saying “it’s time to get out of here” Atlas Shrugged is slammed and ridiculed. Not because it is a bad novel written poorly—but because it makes guilty people feel bad about themselves. They feel bad because they have sold out. Their ideal of a superhero has been regulated to someone who is bit by a magic spider—or someone who comes from another planet. They don’t look in their mirror and see anything super about themselves and they are too lazy to develop it on their own. Atlas Shrugged shows how average people are super just by having values and fighting to maintain those values. It is also about how it is that adherence to value which makes the engine of the world run, culturally, economically, and philosophically.
When John Galt proclaims that he will stop the engine of the world in the new film version titled Atlas Shrugged Part III he is stating that by removing his value from an organization, or society in general that the parasites of reality will have nowhere to hide and civilization will collapse. What prevents this collapse from occurring is that the few protect the masses with their values. But over time it gets harder and harder leaving the looted few to eventually become depleted and perish. The masses expect this sacrifice to occur—they expect the few to serve the many and those with value to give it to them in their vacancy. It is this belief that destroys the world and why the classic novel Atlas Shrugged has now been declared non-fiction—because it has all come true.
The people who hate Atlas Shrugged are also the same people who hate those who try to be good—too good. They are advocates for complacency—for setting the bar low so that they can easily achieve success in life. Ayn Rand’s novel points to that tendency as the invisible destroyer of the world and spits on it placing value where it deservedly always belonged with the heroes of creation—those who work late, early and often—who don’t live their lives through others, but in spite of the efforts to stop them. That hatred is very real. The masses of existence—who advocate so loudly for democracy are the same people who wish to believe that because they outnumber the truly good they can capture the definition of good, and bad, profitable, and unprofitable, and of success or failure. Atlas Shrugged was not written for those people—it was written for those who see heroic deeds in getting up in the morning to face the troubles of the world as an individual without apologizing for working every day to do the best in every aspect of their lives that they can. Ayn Rand’s heroes are not drunks, sexual deviants, or crooked politicians. They are not truly fearful of anything—because they know that it is they who are ultimately in control—so they trust themselves to overcome any problem that comes their way. This gives the heroes a god-like presence in the Atlas Shrugged novel as interpreted by the weak, frightened, and complacent.
Atlas Shrugged was so brilliant because it goes literally against thousands of years of sacrificial belief by the human race. Rand could have played it safe and given the world a novel reminiscent of War and Peace. But she didn’t instead she wrote an epic book of similar length and content but along the way tackled directly the philosophical failure inherit in human beings ridiculous belief that achievement of anything is caused by “sacrifice.” Rand challenges that premise and her heroes refuse it revealing the true success of all societies that prosper. It is literally the best kept secret—and Ayn Rand exploited it putting it in story form so that it would be easy to understand. It has taken literally a half of a century for most of America to figure out the meaning of Atlas Shrugged. Even today, after decades of contemplation, only a handful of the population anywhere in the world understand the message because in any company, any institution, any endeavor what-so-ever, there are only a few who work 12 hour days for the joy of it, get up before the sun even considers rising, because they are trying to squeeze more life out of daylight once it arrives, and do good work not for the pat on the head, or even a pay raise—but because it makes them feel good to do good work.
Atlas Shrugged is essentially the first major literary work in human history that recognizes the benefit of good work and productivity over the emotional pleas of the democratic masses who lobby with every effort to stop the productive who make them feel guilty for being less than robust. It is for that reason that Atlas Shrugged continues to draw scorn from intelligentsia because they want a monopoly on social opinion built upon the foundations of laziness. It is also why Atlas Shrugged is only playing in a few hundred movie theaters and why even in those theaters there will be only 5 or 6 groups of people seeing the movie. The people attending will tend to be the last to leave at their places of business, and the first to arrive, they work hard and take pride in doing a good job—and they can relate to the kind of society that John Galt builds in Atlantis during the film. And as every organization in the country knows, there are always those few who do most of the work. Atlas Shrugged is made for them, not the other idiots who stand at a time clock five minutes before the end of a day and flee to the parking lot like escaped convicts once their work is over for the day only to complain and bitch about how sucky their lives are for the rest of the evening. What happens when people stop doing the extra work for the pure enjoyment of it? You get the events of Atlas Shrugged—now-nonfiction.
It is a shame that Leonard Peikoff and most of the people at the Ayn Rand Institute did not embrace more openly the John Aglialoro Atlas Shrugged films. I’ve read Peikoff’s book on Objectivism and would have thought that he would have supported the endeavor which premiered in Las Vegas last night showing the third and final film—which is clearly the best of the three film series. All the Atlas movies were good, but this third film certainly puts the proper end cap on the long cinematic journey which took so many years for Aglialoro to achieve. The key to the third film is in meeting for the first time the long talked about John Galt and seeing the kind of life that he inspired in a hidden valley called Atlantis. The Atlas Shrugged filmmakers have been very open to those who are part of their online world called Galt’s Gulch and after several years of work had a special showing for them in Vegas which was a wonderful idea. As for the work of Ayn Rand, I can’t think of anywhere better that Objectivism has gained the most ground than with the group that has emerged out of Galt’s Gulch at the Atlas Shrugged web site—and that would not have happened without Aglialoro’s films or his team behind one of the most ambitions independent films ever done.
The third film is titled, Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who is John Galt and is clearly a work of philosophy draped with a love story between Dagny Taggart and John Galt. It has a wonderful message and for those who think in such a way was a comfortable place to spend a couple of hours. For the rest of the world—those who live their lives as second-handers—they will hate the movie. Because of the effort involved, I wish John Aglialoro would have had a larger presence from the Gulch and that online media buzz would have been more robust. But it has been ignored by virtually everyone, including The Ayn Rand Institute which has done a fantastic job over the years of keeping Rand’s books published and teaching Objectivism to people hungry for a functioning philosophy that actually works. I can’t think of a bigger Objectivist event than Atlas Shrugged Part III premiering in Vegas and opening to the world on September 12th, but on the morning of the premier, there was not a single mention of the film by the Institute even though they have their big benefit dinner in New York City on September 23rd. The closest that they have is that Yaron Brook is one of the guest speakers who was also a consultant for the movie. But there is no direct mention of Aglialoro or the new movie by the official gatekeepers of Ayn Rand’s legacy.
With that kind of in-fighting there is no way that the rest of the nation or the world can be expected to get behind an ambitious project like a film adaption of one of America’s most monstrously successful novels. Like it or not, Atlas Shrugged is the great American novel and is much better—and more relevant than any of Mark Twain’s work or John Steinbeck. Atlas Shrugged is what America was and will always be about and those who wish to change that definition absolutely hate the novel and refuse to recognize it—even though the public has bought the book for over half a century on pure word of mouth. It is the biggest underground classic in print, and the Ayn Rand Institute has helped make that so. They will only benefit from the John Aglialoro film as viewers wanting to know more will buy the book to get more details after watching.
To understand Atlas Shrugged and specifically this third film I recently drove my son-in-law who moved here from socialist England through the city of Norwood, Ohio. In the movie, John Galt gives a speech to the owners and workers of a manufacturing facility called the 20th Century Motor Company that is being overtaken by a socialist plan hatched by the company’s inherited owners. The labor union adopts socialism at the company which destroys the plant leaving it vacated of any life within a few years. What they made at the facility becomes quickly lost to history. Driving through modern-day Norwood I showed my son-in-law how the same thing had happened to that poor city just north of Cincinnati, Ohio. I showed him the vacant spot where the Cincinnati Milacron plant used to be. I worked there when I was young and felt very much like a young John Galt—the speech in the film hit home to me and was all too autobiographical. Shortly after I left Milacron, the company destroyed itself with socialism and is no longer there. It used to be a large sprawling campus in Oakley, but now it is empty except for a few small office buildings. Just a few miles to the west are the remains of the old General Motors plant that built Cameros during the hot selling 70s and 80s. Now it is an empty parking lot. Across the Norwood Lateral used to be the largest movie theater house in Cincinnati, the Showcase Cinemas of Norwood. I used to see small art films there like Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter Black Heart which played nowhere else in the city. It only played there because they had so many theaters they could afford to dedicate a few of them to pictures that were more philosophic than commercial. Back then, it was the kind of theater that would have shown Atlas Shrugged Part III. Now that theater is gone, it’s an empty parking lot. As Cincinnati Milacron died and the General Motors plant along with many other smaller businesses all for the same reasons—the investment money moved north to flee the high taxes of the city and parasitic nature of local governments who gain fame for themselves by spending other people’s money. Norwood is essentially a ghost town today after only 20 years of failed economic policy—just like the 20th Century Motor Company in the movie. The only theater that Atlas is playing now is where the money is currently, about 20 miles north in Mason, Ohio at the Regal. Many of the people who reside in neighborhoods around that theater moved from areas like Norwood years ago leaving only the parasites living through socialism to inhabit which collapsed the economy. Some of those Mason people understand the message of Atlas Shrugged because they have been through it, so the movie is showing there. But for the people of Norwood who are typically on welfare, jobless, and from families with several baby daddies coming in and out of their lives—the Objectivist message of the Atlas films are lost to them.
Burger King along with almost every large corporation is seeking to move their headquarters out of America for the same reasons that large companies closed in Norwood—the taxes were too high, and the socialism from their local governments were simply too intrusive, and costly. America has a corporate tax rate of 39.1% which is the highest rate in the entire world which is simply ridiculous. For anybody who has had to actually earn money it is known that for every dollar lost from productivity, that additional productivity must be generated to offset the cost. For an average parasite that is just happy to have food in their bellies, and cable television to watch, they may not wish to be productive so to earn extra money to pay for nice cars, expensive vacations and a life style that is generally comfortable. So they can’t conceive why a CEO would need millions of dollars to run a company because they have no concept of the risks involved in doing so, or the responsibility. When the profitability of responsibility becomes no longer worth it, most CEO’s knowing that they cannot possibly generate enough sales to offset their margins will simply cash out and retire—doing essentially what John Galt and his friends did in the new Atlas film. In the best cases they move their company somewhere where the tax rates are not so high, or they just shut down and retire off their earnings letting the world go to hell. That’s what happened in Norwood leaving the residents there to deal with the mess they created by electing socialist community leaders who thought that taxation could always be proportionally increased. They were wrong, the empty buildings and terrible real estate values are testimony.
When I was a kid my grandfather used to take pigs to slaughter at a meat market near Union Terminal. Back in those days there were several breweries, packaging houses and much industry along the Western Hills Viaduct. Now it is an area mired in poverty driven by an overload of the welfare system. The Viaduct itself is falling apart and nobody can figure out where to get the money to fix it. The Brent Spence Bridge just to the south of the Viaduct is also falling apart and needs replacement. It is major highway artery from the north of the United States to the south, but there are no politicians with any answers even as the highway runs by Paul Brown Stadium which hosts only eight events a year during football season costing $455 million to build in the year 2000 numbers which equates out with inflation to $623 million. Just the spike in inflation rates should be alarming in only 14 years. But worst than that, it was some of the only new construction to take place in downtown Cincinnati in decades. That construction is driven by pure entertainment value which is hardly sustainable for long-term growth and profitability. There has to be industry which actually makes things in order to sustain other businesses and landmarks like the Western Hills Viaduct. The city of Cincinnati is dying just like what was seen in Atlas Shrugged Part III.
Of course people who don’t wish to acknowledge these issues will hate the Atlas films for bringing it to their attention. They wish to remain second-handers forever and don’t want to give up on their illusions of socialism. But for the few who are bold enough to look at the situation squarely—and with honesty, Atlas Shrugged Part III is a blessing. There are already an extreme minority who find that kind of subject matter enjoyable and they are lucky that John Aglialoro made a film for them. It’s not financially profitable to do such a thing, but for a producer like Aglialoro, money can always be made. What cannot be recovered is the American nation and if one truly does love their country—they would obviously try to save it. The Atlas films are an attempt to save the country before everyone simply leaves. The new Atlas film might be called Who Is John Galt, but I suspect that John Aglialoro has more in common with Dagny Taggert from the film than John Galt. Aglialoro is still functioning in the world trying to warn people of what’s coming with his movie. The people at the Atlas Society are already in Atlantis and hope to see it all crumble away—which is the likely anxiety between the two groups.
I thought all this while watching the scene where Dagny decided to leave Atlantis and return back to the world and fix her railroad problems. John Galt, who is the leader in the Gulch decides to leave with her much to the shock of his friends. Because of his attachment to Dagny, John Galt is put in danger of being looted off of once discovered because the world is desperate for someone with some kind of answer. If Dangy had stayed put, it is likely that their paradise would survive forever as the world around them crumbled. But because Dagny chose to leave and continue to fight—it brought John Galt back into the world to provide a deciding blow against socialism. The Atlas Society wants to stay in the Gulch and John Aglialoro—at least a time or two more, wants to fight it out to save America. And that is the crux of the matter. It is a shame; because the Atlas Society has a lot that they could do and if they worked with the Atlas III film, would find that the cause of Objectivism is ripe for the many millions of empty minds out there looking desperately for something to fill them. For the Atlas Society to not attach themselves to the film Atlas Shrugged Part III, they are missing a strategic opportunity that won’t easily come again.
As for where I stand in the film, it is the character Ragnar Danneskjold. John Galt simply wants to cut off the parasites from their theft against the productive. Ragnar wants to take back what was stolen along the way.
Matt Clark did the world a tremendous favor during his weekend broadcast on WAAM radio in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He brought me on and between the two of us we explained during a two segment broadcast the entire problem centering on ISIS and the violence of the Middle East along with a direct tie-in to the violence revolving around the Ferguson riots outside of St. Louis. We also discussed the immigration border crises in America and the general ineptitude of the Obama administration through it all. We offered an accurate diagnosis of all those problems in just the two segments, and if people listened, they would find that the problems would evaporate. What was unique was that the broadcast was a history lesson, a psychological analysis, and a comparative overview of some very large and all-encompassing troubles. Most similar broadcasts only deal with one such topic. But these problems are all connected, and Matt Clark might be the only radio host in America who was able to put all those topics on the table with such brevity. For those who want to understand the essence of these many problems, enjoy the recordings of the broadcasts below as they were heard during Saturday on the air.
The compelling evidence involving all those critical issues, the ISIS terrorism, Ferguson, and immigration is the prevalence that they all are direct results of group oriented identification behavior. Even the gangs of thugs involved in the sex trade industry who cover their bodies with tattoos indicating their belonging to a particular gang share this old tribal desire to be recognized within a group. This desire is stronger than ever because in most cases families have been destroyed and young men have a strong desire to find a sense of family within the brotherhood of gang violence. As crazy as that might sound consider that of the young men involved in the street violence in Ferguson most are from fatherless homes, most of the thugs in ISIS are from homes destroyed by years of violence and their new families are the fellow terrorist groups who associate with them. Most of the gangs involved in trafficking children from Central America, across Mexico and into the United States are from homes vacant of fathers or fathers who were previously involved in illegal and illicit activity. There is a sense of family in such groups that makes them feel that it is they against the world validating their afflictions.
Politicians like President Obama, Jessie Jackson and many others have been caught fanning the flames to these revolts due to their own lack of parental structure in their lives. They seek in group behavior a rectification of their own lack of family structure from their childhoods. Obama gets caught in not calling the ISIS terrorism as outright evil, because he identifies more with them than he does a Tea Party supporter from the Midwest who knows who his mother and father are and can call them at any time and speak without shells exploding outside their windows. Obama instead comes across in his condemnation of ISIS sounding like a big brother talking to a bunch of little brothers who are conducting themselves in a way that might get them into trouble. When it comes to Ferguson, Obama sent Eric Holder to tell the residents there that he understood their issues—he too was once pulled over by a cop profiling him because he was black. When it comes to the border crises Obama as an open border supporter by practice created the policies that allowed the gangs of thugs to destroy lives, rape children and sell copious amounts of drugs to an unmanaged population. Obama’s administration through Fast and Furious actually helped put guns in the hands of border gangs which created a scandal only escaped through executive action.
Yet during our broadcast I reiterated to Matt that I felt sorry for Obama. Yes he proposed the burning of America (metaphorically speaking) and advocated many of the same kinds of things that the terrorist groups against America have, but the ramifications of his actions appear to hurt him—as if he didn’t know that he would bring so much pain to so many people through his treacherous behavior. But Matt was quick to point out that Obama was recently partying the night away in Martha’s Vineyard dancing to every song—which is detestable. Obama has the performance of a person who just can’t face the terrible conditions which he has delivered to the world and is behaving like an alcoholic knowing full well he is destroying his family through his actions. So he parties to hide the pain. But he never intended not to create pain. But the ramifications still hurt. Watching America burn even for a person who hates it—is painful. The responsibility is on his shoulders.
This is similar to the actions of those in ISIS or the looters in Ferguson, they without question feel bad about their acts of terror—any human would. But for them it is their family which comes before anybody else and for fatherless bastards (taken literally) they are instinctively drawn to the brotherhood of group involvement—gangs of thugs who become their new family in the absence of healthy relationships emitting from around a dinner table where a properly structured head of household manages his family with value and love.
We live in the day of the thug from every sector of society, where they greet one another with strange tribal handshakes and identify each other with tattoos and other markings to show their commitment to the collective cause of their created family—their brothers in crime and terror. Their brotherhood of destruction where crimes are hidden from their eyes through collective endorsement and justification are their identity and this is what makes them dangerously unmanageable. This is what Obama and others like him are guilty of—they support through their silence the actions of ISIS, Ferguson, and the gangs of Mexico. They endorse the behavior through a brotherhood intellectually accepted, not physically, but through a brotherhood of fatherless households.
I didn’t use the term bastard on Matt’s FCC controlled radio station, but it is in essence the cause of all these problems. We are living on a bastardnized planet advocated by political despots’ hell bent on social destruction leaving in their wake gangs of fatherless thugs as the only family identification left to them. No amount of money can solve these problems and no law can be written that will stop the continued degradation. Only love of a family—a real honest to goodness biological family can do the trick. A family of natural means must be created to override collective relationships driven by artificial factions.
It is not ironic that many of these problems are the creation of tampering governments who have sought to replace the parent as the supreme guide of individuals in society. England and France created the problem in the Middle East, Open Border advocates created the situation in Mexico, and civil rights leaders have taught for years that minority groups have been oppressed as they sought for personal power reasons to become the leader of a tribe and supreme father to large groups of people by turning masses of people into victims in need of a big brother like Al Sharpton. They want a daddy figure of an entire population to lead their made-up gang family. Most of these problems have risen during the progressive era and are a direct result of their big government tampering which has cheapened the role of fathers in families only to be replaced by government—poorly managed government to be exact.
Answers to these complicated problems have been provided by Matt Clark and me during the epic Clarkcast broadcast. There is no excuse not to know how to fix those problems; they are as evident as a bright sun in the desert on a cloudless day. The only thing that is up for contention is what to do about it. Humans need a sense of family—of knowing where they come from. If that family is a gang of thugs—then the quality of life in that family brotherhood will be destructive. If the family is healthy and good, then there is a good chance that terrorism will be far from their minds. That terrorism whether it is the reforming of America by Obama to represent an anti colonialism viewpoint given to him as a school child in Jakarta, or the Muslim radicals of ISIS—the heart of their problem is the lack of love of a father and a family to give them what their hearts deeply seek—a sense of belonging and knowing that they have a place in the hearts of people they admire. What all these modern terrorists have in common is that they are the direct result of a society of bastards—and that is the direct fault of progressive politics. Nobody else can share that blame with them—because they have pushed everyone else aside leaving them holding the responsibly exclusively.
I said many times during the day which was absolutely perfect for July weather with mild temperatures and occasional rain bursts erupting just to the north and south painting a menacing sky at times across the vast plains of farmland extending out into Indiana—that my love of this event was yearly maintenance; it restored my faith in humanity. The people who attend are some of the few people left in the entire world who do these kinds of things which used to be common place during Annie Oakley’s time. A few are in long-term marriages which are inspiring, and most have spouses that they bring with them where they enjoy each other in a healthy way and it is just good to associate with people of that character. I’ve said it before, but it is applicable, the people in our group are nearly identical to the characters shown in the Clint Eastwood film Bronco Billy—which is a favorite of mine. They are a small group of people who are all that is keeping a way of life in America alive for the next generation.
There are many in the world who might say good riddance to classic American arts—particularly those residing around large metropolitan areas—which is why attending each year restores my faith in humanity. It is so refreshing to spend time around genuine people who truly love something rooted in classic Americana. But to lose these values, the whip cracking, the gun spinning, roping, and knife throwing—with vaudeville type shows conducted from corn fields in the middle of nowhere—U.S.A would be treacherous. The heart of what it means to be an American is in those shows, I have now known the ring master of the Annie Oakley event—Gery Deer for over ten years and each year he finds new ways to change-up the show to always keep it interesting. At first there were concerns over moving the Annie Oakley Festival to the outskirts of Greenville—but quickly those worries proved pointless. Large crowds attended and the celebration was nothing short of inspiring.
It took me a while to get warmed up but by the time we got to the Speed Switch contest which allows bullwhip artists to strike at ten targets as fast as they could–first with one hand then with the other on the way back up the target row, I had hit my stride. This year it was obvious that everyone was a bit smoother and had been practicing. The times were faster generally for everyone which made for an exciting show for the people watching from the bleachers. I had my fastest time ever on the Speed Switch—just a bit over 11 seconds which is fast for even the Speed and Accuracy contest so well-known to seasoned veterans. I enjoyed the location, the vast open spaces all around the touring bus of the Brother’s and Company set up as a backdrop for the stage as a generator provided all the power needed for the show. The crowd sat in the beginnings of the York Woods where shade gave them shelter from the sun which peaked out often around menacing storm clouds. If anything pushed my speed a bit it was a combination of those elements.
Many of the same people who came last year came this time around again traveling from far away destinations to arrive. Some couldn’t make it, but the beauty of the event is that each year there are opportunities to do it again and recharge their batteries from a punishing year. It is punishing to stand behind these classic American art forms when the current trend is to run away. Often the skeptics will stand on the outskirts of the roped off area and watch with curiosity as most of their thoughts were created by pop culture—but after a few moments, they can’t help but smile at the cheesy jokes and purity of the type of Western Showcase that Gery routinely puts on. There is a playful innocence in it that is unmistakable and it doesn’t take long to reach into the inner child of the typical viewer to touch that part of themselves which has long ago been ignored—and suppressed.
I saw some of that at the end of the day when my wife and I went to the restaurant we normally gather at in Greenville to make reservations for the back half of the dining room. The rest of our group was on the tour bus coming down from the York Woods location so we wanted to have everything set up for when they arrived. As the manager arranged tables I saw some of that modern cynicism in the bar where my wife and I waited. A corner contained a group of young twenty-somethings watching a baseball game and as I stood silhouetted in the doorway between the bar and dining room a young kid with his date looked my way and started texting his friends sitting next to him murmuring—it’s “Crocodile Dundee.” I stared at the kid just to make him feel uncomfortable and to let him know that I could hear him, which he hadn’t expected. He wanted anonymity from the security of his reality among his friends so I made a point to not give it to him. This isn’t the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. On more than one occasion in that same bar we’ve encountered worse but quickly converted them over into fans. One year Chris Camp took a skeptical woman outside and made her into a whip target stand in the parking lot in front of her husband cracking straws from her outstretched hands. Moments before she had been similar to the kids in the corner, but after about five minutes was gushing all over herself at the coolness of having a weapon break the sound barrier right next to her face. The only references modern people have toward such things outside of the type of events that Gery puts on, is music, movies, and television which has turned dramatically against the American Western, or any form of rugged individualism.
The clash of cultures is one where the values of two groups of people crash in places like that bar. At the Annie Oakley Festival the context is already presented. It is not unusual for members of the Western Arts Showcase to roam around the event in costume. I typically wear my whips with me, and nobody bats an eye—they expect it because of the context of the show. When our members used to attend the Fairlawn restaurant in years prior the strip of road separating it from the Darke County Fairgrounds was filled with people attending the festival. This year there was no late night activity in town, because the Annie Oakley event had moved far to the north—so the Fairlawn was filled with regular people living their regular lives watching baseball games and trying to show how well they fit into the modern world of the big nearby cities like Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati to the south. So for the kids in the bar they had no idea there was an Annie Oakley event in town as it had moved. The boy who made the Crocodile Dundee comment likely hoped that his girl friend would be impressed by his remark and the laughs and giggles among his friends would earn him an honor of some kind, to prove that he was just as much of a douche bag as the next guy. What kids like that don’t know, because it’s not part of their experience, is that the heroes of old, which the Ohio Western Arts group is dedicated to preserving are people like Lash LaRue, Douglas Fairbanks, and of course Annie Oakley—people they have no experience with. If they did, they’d have a much more fulfilled life—their marriages would last longer, their lives would be richer, and they’d be generally happy people. Some of the members of our group travel in trucks and vans that are twenty years old filled with stage props. Often they sleep in a cramped back seat traveling from gig to gig in a hope that their sheer charisma might improve the lives of just one person with the kind of hopes and dreams born from the mind of America. Most of the time they get paid decently, but are drained from the experience only to dust off the feeling and do it again weekend after weekend year after year.
I have never seen a young girl who didn’t melt away into butter when a confident whip handler removed a target from her lips. If the kid wanted to impress his date—and I wanted to tell him this—the best thing he could do for himself is to learn the skills our group brought to the Annie Oakley Festival. As our group arrived and filled the back of the room, the kid stood in the doorway wondering who all those people were sitting with that same guy in the Australian style outback hat. His perplexed look was one of realizing that there was a group of people in the world functioning around him who were different from the patterns he had learned—that certain music was popular, certain modes of dress acceptable, and that there were people out there who considered non-conformity to be far superior to social conformity. It is that trait that the Annual Annie Oakley Festival in Darke County, Ohio appeals to best, and the primary reason that so many make the yearly pilgrimage.
I certainly have a lot of experience with such things measuring public temperament. Unlike the other attendees I have chosen a more controversial roll using my desire to preserve the Western Arts in a way that I think the real Lash LaRue would have done in his day—I have made it part of my political discourse. I have fought higher taxes and known political corruption using the skills nurtured along over the years with the bullwhip to have the same effect the young guy in the bar experienced. When it comes to traditional American art, I feel that the best ground to defend it is outside of the shows where viewers can watch comfortably from behind a roped off area. I take great pleasure in bringing the show to the safety of the herd because it is there that they need to see it most.
At the end of the night there were jokes about how out-of-fashion we were as a group and pride was taken in being so out of style. I remarked that all we needed to do was wait another 50 years and there will be hordes of people desiring deeply the traditional American arts displayed yearly at the Annie Oakley Festival—it will at that time become fashionable again. But right now, especially with the failure of the Lone Ranger at the box office last year, nobody in movies or television is going to produce a film like Zorro or Lash LaRue in the jaded culture we have now. But for those who still desire such things, the way we do who perform them, the yearly event of Annie Oakley is a real treat. It recharges my batteries with meaning after a year of typical cynicism in a way nothing else does. I typically wear my hat year round everywhere from Michigan to Florida and in every possible venue from wealthy to poor—so it is routine to get the kind of reaction I received from the kid in the bar. But what is unique is that a horde of people dressed similarly who share my values don’t often come walking in behind me. And while I might want to take Lash LaRue off the silver screen and plop him down into America in 2014 with my real life antics, it is the one and only time a year that I get more from everyone else than I typically give leaving me feeling uncharacteristically fulfilled. In that regard, I hope that Gery gets the circus tent next year that he’s talking about—because that would be absolutely grand and a good next step to the new venue at York Woods marking of the start of a second decade in a long march toward eternity.
The aspect of the second-hander is the only one that makes sense when many of the world’s problems are analyzed. My hatred of the intoxication culture stems from this division between second-handers and producers—which was elaborated upon as a kind of identifiable introduction in a previous article. One of the primary reasons that I have enjoyed the movie Gladiator so intensely is because it deals squarely with this problem of producers and second-handers—as the Emperor’s son was a second hander, and Maximus was a producer. When that same son—Commodus inherited the throne through treachery—and attempted to completely destroy Maximus by killing his family, robbing him of all his social connections, and leaving him for dead in a forest the producer lead Maximus rose up through the ranks of the gladiators to challenge the entire Empire not through any other effort but sheer tenacity. Commodus could not understand how his old rival had managed to regain such respect and stature because as a second hander, he had to be given his value through others. The new Emperor believed that because he stole away the life of Maximus that he destroyed the man. But Maximus was a producer and therefore a great leader—it didn’t matter if it was among the best fighters in the world at the time of Roman legionnaires or the dregs of society as gladiators fighting for their life in the arena. Maximus thrived because he didn’t know how to do anything else but generate success—as a producer which eventually destroyed the emperor. Gladiator was a great movie primarily for this reason.
Producer types make their own way, and enjoy thinking. They typically don’t pray to the gods for success, they don’t seek to live off the inheritance of their ancestors, and they don’t gamble or purchase lottery tickets hoping to be filled by chance of a draw so that they can wake up one morning filled by the efforts of others. Everything they do is geared toward productive enterprise even when they are performing in leisurely endeavors. That said producers would typically not be comfortable in social settings like bars where intoxication is the objective. Producers do not wish to lose their mental faculties. Second handers however do wish to lose their ability to think—as mentioned in the previous article about people who prefer electric shock over thinking. The practitioners of drunkenness are second handers because they are surrendering thought to chance as relief from the responsibility of action.
Intoxication is one of the vilest activities that could be perpetrated against an active mind. Yet second handers routinely abuse their thinking because they cannot allow the impulse of their own inner producer developed as children to reemerge to the life of choice competing with their adult decisions to remain a passive second hander waiting for others to fill them with thoughts and action. When it is said that someone is “drunk with power” this is something to which they speak—taking the example of Commodus once again, the new Emperor killed the old one believing that his actions would settle the issue of who would lead next the Roman Empire after the conquest of the Germanic people of the north. But Maximus interfered with this equation with a new set of rules—that of a producer who did not care for politics—because he did not need politicians or social connections to give him authority—he simply generated it. Maximus didn’t need a god to give him authority or validation to be great—because he already knew that he was. And Maximus didn’t need favors granted by those in a bloodline of leadership because he knew he was a natural leader functioning well as a producer. So Commodus tried to have Maximus killed to preserve his illusion of power and right by blood to lead an entire region of people as if he had a right to the throne by grace of the gods.
The drunk does the same thing in essence; they drink to lose their minds from the observations of contrary reality which conflicts with their path of parasitic social behavior—that of the second hander who needs the approval of others. A room full of drunks as a bar is a palace of second handers evading their destiny as thinking producers. Instead they have surrendered their fates to being filled by others for their sustenance. Getting drunk helps them not feel the conflict of thought which is always seeking to emerge.
A constant companion of dialogue in these modern times is the term “depression” which is thrown about so flamboyantly by second handers to explain their affliction—much of which is prescribed drugs to alleviate the pain. The cause of depression is the desire for something which does not come to second handers by luck—such as love, money, respect, or general value. When those things fail to come to a second hander by the grace of invisible rulers—people find themselves depressed and seek alcohol or other drugs to relieve them of that pain. As alcohol is a depressant it often makes depression worse—but what is really sought is the numbness of thinking—not the affliction of depression which usually becomes more pronounced. A producer generally does not feel depression because their thoughts are not out of alignment from their actions. Producers are not let down because their IRS refund check did not come in the mail, or some perfect job fell upon them by social connections. They make these things for themselves and are generally a happy lot of people because they are living authentically to their nature—as producers.
If you walk into any environment where large amounts of alcohol are being consumed you are seeing a temple of second handers seeking to suppress thought and responsibility for productivity. As second handers they try to crush their inner Maximus so that their Commodus can speak to them. And what Commodus says to them often exacerbates the tendency toward depression they feel, but without thought to measure against—they are free of the pain so long as they drink. This is why second handers tend to drink to get intoxicated and producers do not. Producers value their thoughts as second handers are running away. This means that if anything is ever to be fixed in the world about us, it has to start with this tendency toward second hander behavior. The world cannot be run and built by second handers—because they are incapable and are not equal in value to the producers of the world. The issue is not one of race, sex, or even fate—it is one of decisions and mental faculties by way of focus.
That is the kind of nonsense that is being taught in public schools and has been adopted into general business practices. It is essentially behind the new Common Core methods of teaching which Glenn Beck so elaborately dismantled in his new book Conform. That book shows why well-meaning politicians and philanthropists are backing Common Core—which is a complete destruction of the American education system—specifically destroying the individuality inherit in American children—and integrating them into a more global view which embodies that basic quote of Miyamoto Musashi shown above. As traditionalists cling to the notion that Common Core must be eradicated from public education systems so to preserve the uniqueness that is desired in American children a far more sinister threat can be found behind the politics of the movement.
Most large companies in The United States cling blindly to the management teachings of William Deming—which has proven itself to be a tragedy. Deming is the man responsible for all the ridiculous attempts at Total Quality Management which has tied the hands of American business by putting engineers essentially in charge of the management of company resources so to hamper proper productivity. This trend exploded in America through the largest manufacturers in a time when it appeared that the Japanese were dominating all fields of productive endeavor threatening to overtake American methods in the 1980s. The Japanese in a desperate need to get back on their feet after World War II had embraced Deming, an engineer from America to beat their former rivals at their own game. Deming found among the Japanese people a collective based society that quickly unified behind his management methods which were essentially old Samurai strategy concepts dressed up behind mathematical formulas to justify himself being a paid consultant. Deming was perpetrating a scam to justify his celebrity status as he propped up the Japanese.
Deming was a ruse because he essentially disliked management and sought later in his classes to ridicule American executives free of their ego and to force them into collaboration with employees and co-workers through his collective based management methods. American businessmen listened to Deming as it was believed that the Japanese were dominating manufacturing because of him—which wasn’t true. The Japanese were dominating because of their sense of selfless dedication to collective causes. They thought differently than Americans and the result of their labor could be seen in their products.
It must be remembered that American businesses and the Japanese were both struggling with the spread of communism in post World War II global economic concerns, so Deming was delivering a way that management could restrict the impact of labor union quota refusals by offering managers up to laborers as sacrificial victims. This worked well in Japan who had managed to contain the spread of communism in their society through their selfless dedication to Miyamoto Musashi’s strategy guide The Book of Five Rings. As they were already functioning as a collective society, labor unions had little to offer them, so they were able to resist the push toward communism. Labor unions in Japan maintained an unusually close relationship to their companies as their identities were less focused on individual achievement and more concerned over the general health of their company. This gave Deming fertile ground to develop his management methods.
William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. Trained initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical physics, he helped develop the sampling techniques still used by the Department of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, championed the work of Dr. Walter Shewhart, including Statistical Process Control, Operational Definitions, and what he called The Shewhart Cycle[1] which evolved into “PDSA” (Plan-Do-Study-Act) in his book The New Economics for Industry, Government, and Education,[2] as a response to the growing popularity of PDSA, which he viewed as tampering with the meaning of Dr. Shewhart’s original work. [3] He is best known for his work in Japan after WWII, particularly his work with the leaders of Japanese industry which began in August 1950 at the Hakone Convention Center in Tokyo with a now seminal speech on what he called Statistical Product Quality Administration, which many in Japan credit with being the inspiration for what has become known as the Japanese post-war economic miracle of 1950 to 1960, rising from the ashes of war to become the second most powerful economy in the world in less than a decade, founded on the ideas first taught to them by Dr Deming:
That the problems facing manufacturers can be solved through cooperation, despite differences.
Marketing is not “sales,” but the science of knowing what people who buy your product repeatedly think of that product and whether they will buy it again, and why.
That In the initial stages of design, you must conduct market research, applying statistical techniques for experimental and planning and inspection of samples.
And you must perfect the manufacturing process.[4]
He is best known in the United States for his 14 Points (Out of the Crisis, by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Preface) and his system of thought he called the System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four components, or “lenses” through which to view the world simultaneously:
Deming made a significant contribution to Japan’s later reputation for innovative, high-quality products, and for its economic power. He is regarded as having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other individual not of Japanese heritage. Despite being honored in Japan in 1951 with the establishment of the Deming Prize he was only just beginning to win widespread recognition in the U.S. at the time of his death in 1993.[6]President Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Technology in 1987. The following year, Deming also received the Distinguished Career in Science award from the National Academy of Sciences.
The philosophy of W. Edwards Deming has been summarized as follows:
Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught that by adopting appropriate principles of management, organizations can increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs (by reducing waste, rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing customer loyalty). The key is to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not as bits and pieces.”[26]
In the 1970s, Deming’s philosophy was summarized by some of his Japanese proponents with the following ‘a’-versus-‘b’ comparison:
(a) When people and organizations focus primarily on quality, defined by the following ratio,
quality tends to increase and costs fall over time.
(b) However, when people and organizations focus primarily on costs, costs tend to rise and quality declines over time.
“The prevailing style of management must undergo transformation. A system cannot understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside. The aim of this chapter is to provide an outside view—a lens—that I call a system of profound knowledge. It provides a map of theory by which to understand the organizations that we work in.
“The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge. The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people.
“Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. “
Deming advocated that all managers need to have what he called a System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four parts:
Appreciation of a system: understanding the overall processes involving suppliers, producers, and customers (or recipients) of goods and services (explained below);
Knowledge of variation: the range and causes of variation in quality, and use of statistical sampling in measurements;
Theory of knowledge: the concepts explaining knowledge and the limits of what can be known.
Knowledge of psychology: concepts of human nature.
He explained, “One need not be eminent in any part nor in all four parts in order to understand it and to apply it. The 14 points for management in industry, education, and government follow naturally as application of this outside knowledge, for transformation from the present style of Western management to one of optimization.”
Key principles
Deming offered fourteen key principles to managers for transforming business effectiveness. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. (p. 23–24)[28] Although Deming does not use the term in his book, it is credited with launching the Total Quality Management movement.[29]
Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, to stay in business and to provide jobs.
Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
End the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
Institute training on the job.
Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8 of “Out of the Crisis”). The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company. (See Ch. 3 of “Out of the Crisis”)
Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, in order to foresee problems of production and usage that may be encountered with the product or service.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute with leadership.
Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.
Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objectives (See Ch. 3 of “Out of the Crisis”).
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.
“Massive training is required to instill the courage to break with tradition. Every activity and every job is a part of the process.”[30]
Of course there is one essential ingredient that Deming avoided and if his work, lectures and methods are studied properly it will be discovered that Deming was attempting to use mathematic equations to get his mind around leadership—and he never succeeded. The Japanese succeeded because as a society they are happy to yield their individualities toward collective goals, but in The United States—which is an individually based society—workers are not. Goals for American workers have to be made to align with the company’s goals—they cannot be bent to subjugate themselves to a system devised by Eastern manufacturing methods. Deming’s methods worked in Japan, but they never have, and never will work in America. There were initial increases in profit for companies who applied Deming techniques—simply because they began with so much waste to begin with—but most large companies today have simply outsourced their manufacturing to evade the impact of Deming—because once an American worker is broken down from their individuality they become automatons and resist the impulse to innovate. Their negativity often turns into a corrosive relationship with their company as they psychologically see their employer as the source of crushing their individual will.
All through the 80s and 90s in America there was grave concern that America was somehow inferior to Japan and everyone else in the world who seemed to find success with Deming’s methods. Yet what those same critics ignored was that America produced Deming, and the machinery that won World War II, and had never had any manufacturing issues prior to Deming—so why did they need him? American executives had lost their incentive to be innovative, and to push themselves as they had been pushed into a collective goo following Deming methods of Total Quality Management that really sought to alleviate their personal input. Modern managers were discouraged in using their individual gifts to improve productivity, quality, and work environment because Deming had already provided a system that their companies were forcing them to adhere to—leaving them generally uninterested in the manufacturing process.
What Deming never put his finger on and seemed to struggle with all his life was the source of his “concept of human nature.” Within that was the realization that some people were born leaders and some people were just born followers and this equation did not fit well into the mathematical formulas of an electrical engineer. The ability to create a leader is what everyone wanted, but they lacked the ability to detect them—so companies used Deming as a second hander to give them a process that would hide their inability—and deficiency in recruiting, staffing, and mid-level leadership.
Yet, America has produced without any help from any college, or management consultant many leaders who have created companies that amassed huge amounts of wealth—Microsoft comes to mind. Yet Bill Gates who founded Microsoft as a college dropout is the premier instigator of Common Core leaving him to be thought of as the modern Deming. Politicians and other business leaders think that because Gates created a company that generated so much wealth that he is somehow qualified to provide an education method that would create a generation of children that can compete with the world. However, Americans are not like other people—there is a reason that American Excepetionalism exists and it isn’t because they can integrate themselves into a Deming process. Bill Gates with all his genius has been unable to put into any kind of mathematical formula the reason for his success—so has been unable to create an education system that can make more of him—which American companies and state governors are hoping Common Core will do for the youth.
Common Core like Deming’s Total Quality Management ignores human initiative and thus fails to find the best among human populations to instigate innovation and productive enterprise—and to capitalize off of American Excepetionalism. Instead they are seeking kill it which is why most people are ready to hang themselves in The United States after they take one of Deming’s four-day seminars. It’s not the extreme boredom of the classes, or the lack of real relevance to manufacturing—it is the destruction of individual initiative yielding toward collective causes that creates the anxiety.
The failure of Deming, and thus of every company that follows his methods is the destruction of internal leadership that was foolishly studied from the East as if such things could have been born there. Deming was an American creation and had he never went to Japan, he would have remained an obscure engineer that nobody would have listened to if he had not struck it rich bringing together a battered people in the Japanese to resurrect themselves. For Japan, Deming was like the feather Dumbo carried around making the elephant believe it could fly—Deming was a crutch to rely upon in a time of need. He didn’t give the Japanese anything they couldn’t have given themselves—because their culture would have achieved those same heights completely on their own. Deming in the United States appealed to the second-handers who live through others and looked at Japan and wanted to copy what they were doing—ignoring their own propensity toward leadership, because they failed to see who among them had the capacity to rise. When second handers are in charge and fear being replaced by those who are truly oozing with leadership and human initiative, Deming systems are adopted to protect their social status—which is why Total Quality Management ultimately fails in America.
Those same second handers are behind Common Core and for the same reasons. Bill Gates became wealthy building operating systems that could interact with machines to usher in the personal computer revolution. He doesn’t know why he was so different from everyone else—but he was. Now he hopes to do the same for education through Common Core. However, like Deming his problem is a complex one because what his methods are achieving is not self initiated leadership among work forces—but rather destroying individuals into simple machines who can function within a system. Gates is building a machine with Common Core and like Deming before him—the world is eating out of his hand hoping that Gates knows something about human nature that they don’t.
Deming his whole life struggled with the notion he obviously learned from the Japanese of profound knowledge. As he said, “once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. ” But he never figured it out. He was seeking the basis of leadership which is not produced by any system put in place—it comes from human initiative and creativity and is a by-product of American Excepetionalism—the same Excepetionalism that invented the airplane, the light builb, and built an economy based on capitalism where the exceptional rise to the top and are easy to spot instead of being hidden behind a TQM system obscured from the eyes of the people who could most directly benefit. Common Core is essentially the same failure applied to American business from Deming—which has all but destroyed manufacturing in the United States, and passed it on to education. The crime is not that Common Core will destroy the millions of minds who are destined to be simple cogs in a grand machine that will dance willingly to Deming’s processes. The crime is that Common Core will destroy the few exceptions that will have a vast impact on the development of the human race led by America. It is for that reason that Common Core must be vanquished. Deming did enough damage for one lifetime. The world certainly doesn’t need more of him.
In the context of my lifelong interest in global mythology and comparative religion, I see all the news coming out about Star Wars as infinitely good in so many ways. When Harrison Ford was injured recently filming the new Star Wars Episode 7 movie, the world stopped as he was airlifted to the hospital in England. With all the news going on globally, terrorists taking over Iraq, Obama’s parade of scandals, election impact of new blood in the Republican Party, it was Harrison Ford’s injury which captured the headlines of virtually every news source. Some of that is deliberate misdirection, but a lot of it is genuine interest, and concern for a mythology which touches the heart of so many people. On the same day as this terrible news about Harrison Ford, who will bounce back from such things as he always does—came the latest news from Fantasy Flight Games popular X-Wing Miniatures game. For Father’s Day my wife hosted a big party for our family, which was wonderful. But much of the best parts of it were the weekend of playing X-Wing Miniatures with the people who came.
Every time I turn around starting about a year ago, Fantasy Flight Games has been improving their product line. What they are doing with X-Wing Miniatures is cutting edge stuff that is launching tabletop gaming into a whole new dimension. I’ve never seen anything like it. There have been for years great games like Warhammer, Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic the Gathering, but this effort with X-Wing Miniatures is game changing. As the new films hit the marketplace and return to the mind of society in general as part of their daily dialogue—which is already happening, this Fantasy Flight Games production of X-Wing Miniatures is about to explode. Mythologically speaking, I think FFG’s relatively new game is the best vehicle to express and maintain new mythological trends that exist. It is more powerful than novels, more relevant than the films themselves, and more participatory than video games. Playing the game does essentially what some of the highest minds in the world do at Esalan at the Mythological Roundtable sponsored by the Joseph Campbell Foundation. X-Wing Miniatures recreates myth and allows players to directly participate actively, as opposed to passively. They take control of their own mythology, which is what I think is the key to the success of the Fantasy Flight Games venture.
During Father’s Day my family played the game extensively, and as we played we talked heavily about the new ships coming out in Wave 4, in just a few weeks, and we discussed the very exciting news about Wave 5 set to hit the marketplace later this year—2014. The most exciting news of that announcement is the YT-2400 from the old video game Shadows of the Empire from Nintendo 64. That particular ship will go well with my Millennium Falcon to cause all kinds of trouble in a game that has become a mild obsession. Here is the press release from Fantasy Flight Games published as news poured out to the world the Harrison Ford would quickly recover from his injury.
Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of two new starships for X-Wing™!
In this, the game’s fifth wave, two large starships arrive ready for the heat of battle: the Rebellion’s YT-2400 and the Imperial’s VT-49 Decimator.
In addition to their starships, each of which is sculpted faithfully at the game’s standard 1/270 scale, the YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack and VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack introduce a host of new upgrades and terrain pieces that allow you to explore a wide range of new tactics in your space battles.
You’ll also find a large cast of characters drawn from the expanded Star Wars universe, the first Imperial turret weapon, and upgrade cards designed by the game’s first two World Champions.
YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack
A fast and resilient light freighter, the YT-2400 features no fewer than thirteen weapon emplacement points, making it an attractive vessel for smugglers, mercenaries, and other individuals looking for a heavily armed “transport.” Although a stock YT-2400 light freighter has plenty of space for cargo, much of that space is often annexed to support modified weapon systems and oversized engines.
The YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack brings this formidable light freighter to your table as a Rebel starship with two attack, two agility, five hull, and five shields.
The highlight of the YT-2400 Freighter Expansion Pack is its detailed miniature starship, which is enhanced by one new mission, three debris cloud tokens, a maneuver dial, all requisite tokens, and four ship cards, including one for the famed smuggler Dash Rendar.
VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack
To be granted command of a VT-49 Decimator is seen as a significant promotion for a middling officer of the Imperial Navy. A heavily armed transport, the VT-49 Decimator is one of the Empire’s most feared warships, often used to provide long-range reconnaissance or to deploy raiding parties past enemy forces.
The VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack brings this intimidating Imperial gunboat to X-Wing as the game’s largest ship yet designed for Standard Play. Even at the game’s signature 1/270 scale, the expansion pack’s detailed miniature towers over its base and smaller starfighters.
In addition to its imposing, pre-painted miniature, the VT-49 Decimator Expansion Pack introduces four ship cards, three debris cloud tokens, a new mission, a maneuver dial, and all the tokens you need to fly your Decimator into the thick of combat. Finally, you’ll find thirteen upgrade cards, which introduce a variety of crew members like Mara Jade and Fleet Officer designed to help you fill out the Decimator’s three crew member slots.
X-Wing Miniatures as it stands today is one of the coolest games on the market. I have never seen something like it which has united my family the way it has—from young to old and all economic groups. Everyone who plays the game loves the game—even if they aren’t very good at it. I would say that is because of the strength of the mythological nature of it—it pulls players into a story which they control, and that is what separates it away from novels, movies, and video games. In those forums, participants simply unlock what someone else created, but with X-Wing Miniatures, Fantasy Flight Games simply provides the tool box–the players use the tools for their own stories.
In my personal story arc, I’m a YT guy in every way possible—and to get my hands on a YT-2400 that barrel rolls and has a turret that can equip a secondary weapon is extremely powerful. This will be the build that replaces the twin Falcons and with the meta game moving away from TIE swarms and toward the devastating aspects of Whisper who flies the upcoming Phantom Wave 4 ship shooting with 4 dice. The game is getting faster and more maneuverable. Rebel ships can’t just sit around with no agility waiting to get picked off. They will also have to be able to shoot every turn just to survive the weapons the Imperial players are throwing at them—and that is where the fun begins. Figuring out those types of problems and letting the mythology play out based on the thought of the players.
I think this game X-Wing Miniatures will replace Monopoly as the newest, hottest selling game that brings families to the kitchen table to play—because as the new films hit the market over the next 6 years, and the new Rebels television show on Disney XD gains in popularity, the innovation created by Fantasy Flight Games will have hit critical mass and the general population will find themselves every bit as addicted to the sheer joy that the game brings—only for them the learning curve will be steep. What started as a simple game with just a few ships has turned into a very complex web of tactical entertainment with a seemingly infinite combination of strategic options which can keep a mind occupied for years. But beyond that—there is a story to this game which has more power than Chess, all the ambition of a novel, and more edge of the seat excitement than a year’s worth of video games—and the new additions never stop coming—the most exciting for me yet is the YT-2400.
Even though his health had been failing since 2006 after a series of strokes left him partially disabled, Malcolm Glazer’s death is truly a sad loss for the entire world. The Tampa Bay billionaire was instrumental in upgrading the quality of life for the popular Florida city and has poured millions of dollars into charitable organizations that they wouldn’t have had otherwise—if not for his industriousness, and productivity. He is one of the people in the world that I admire the most and I came to know of him through his ownership of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL team. But he was much more than that and is truly a great human being. After his passing Jon Gruden had this to say about the loss of his former boss.
“He was a friend and a trailblazer. I’ll miss him and I thank him for believing in me. My condolences to the Glazer family and to the Bucs organization.”
Malcolm Glazer’s history by Bucs Nation Blog www.SBNation.com The Buccaneers’ announce Malcolm Glazer’s passing earlier today. (May 28, 2014) The Buccaneers have announced that the second owner in franchise history, Malcolm Glazer, passed away at the age of 85. After a period under Hugh Culverhouse’s ownership that was marked with ill feeling between players and the owner, Glazer’s purchase of the team saw a huge turnaround in the team’s fortunes. Under his ownership, the Bucs went from the worst team in the sport by a considerable margin, to Super Bowl champions in just seven seasons. Below is the Buccaneers’ statement in full: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are saddened to announce the passing of Owner/President Malcolm Glazer earlier this morning at the age of 85. A dynamic business leader, Glazer helped mold the Buccaneers into a model franchise and one respected league-wide. Since being purchased by Glazer in 1995, the Buccaneers franchise has earned seven playoff berths, five playoff wins, and captured its first Super Bowl championship in 2002. Known among his league peers as a pioneering thinker, Glazer infused his team and employees with the determination and dedication to be the best in the NFL. Glazer’s commitment to building a championship organization has provided the foundation for continued success, on and off the field. Glazer’s input was instrumental on the league level as well, as evidenced by his time serving on the NFL’s Finance Committee. He also played a major role in Tampa becoming a host for the Super Bowl on several occasions. In 1999, Glazer launched the Glazer Family Foundation, which is dedicated to assisting charitable and educational causes in the Tampa Bay community, highlighted by the opening of the Glazer Children’s Museum in 2010. In its 15 years of existence, the Foundation has donated millions in programs, tickets, grants and in-kind contributions. In 2005, Glazer purchased Manchester United. Since then, the club captured five Premier League titles (2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013), as well as the 2008 Champions League title. Born in Rochester, New York as one of seven children, Glazer took over the family watch-parts business at age 15 following the death of his father and then continued his foray into the professional world, investing in other businesses. Glazer owned or was a substantial shareholder of a diverse portfolio of international holdings and public companies, including: First Allied, Zapata Corporation, Houlihan’s Restaurant Chain, Harley Davidson, Formica, Tonka, Specialty Equipment and Omega Protein. A resident of Palm Beach, Florida, Glazer leaves behind his wife, Linda, six children and 14 grandchildren. Mr. Glazer’s long established estate succession plan has assured the Buccaneers will remain with the Glazer family for generations to come. Linda Glazer, along with their five sons and daughter, will continue to own and operate the team as they have throughout the family’s ownership. A private family funeral service will be held for Mr.Glazer. The opportunity for others to remember and celebrate Mr. Glazer’s life will be announced at a future date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in his memory to All Children’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, and Shriners Hospitals for Children – Tampa. http://www.todayspulse.com/news/sports/report-tampa-bay-bucs-manchester-united-owner-glaz/nf8js/
What few people have acknowledged is that if Glazer had just been happy with the family watch parts business at the age of 15 and had not moved into other investments and risky business ventures, it is likely his family would have struggled all their life to make ends meet, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would still be looking for a winning season, and the city of Tampa would be an armpit of strip joints and seasonal condo owners serving a fishing community. Glazer literally put the city of Tampa on his back and carried it with his innovation, and self generated wealth.
When anybody uses the term, “we must educate our children to compete in the global marketplace,” or any variation of that term the instigator is totally ignorant as to what makes education valuable. They falsely believe that education consists in teaching children left-winged ideology and work habits of a 100% commitment to institutionalism and that since the rest of the world is moving in that direction, that American education must consist of these erroneous premises. After all, political “leaders” see how things are done in China, and Japan, and they believe they must copy those methods—which is probably the dumbest thing that could be introduced to an American workforce and the people who make it up. People who believe that “education” as defined by Common Core standards is the way to direct young minds might as well be crack addicts instructing others on responsible living. The point of education eludes them making them a menace to the discussion of learning.
The most important attribute public education could and should implement into an instructional system of any kind, is the ability to think. The second thing it could do would be to teach students to be competent human beings. Anything outside of those parameters is useless to a human mind, and merely ornamental. Education is not a race against the socialists of Europe, the communists of China, or the kamikaze driven Easterner. Americans are imaginative, intuitive, and utilize large amounts of horse sense in their utilization of productivity and their education system needs to reflect this trend.
Americans fix tractors often with shovel handles, solve complicated engineering feats with bubble gum, and produce more patents than anyplace else in the world—because they are a free people who are at liberty to think. However modern education which leans way to far to the political left, is about chasing the rest of the foolish world teaching our youth to be just as stupid as everyone else, and to turn off their minds to the process of thought—and to embrace blind submission to institutional authority. This is the most damaging attribute that can be taught to an American.
If those who support government education want real success, not just statistical success relative to the rest of the world’s false methods they would teach young minds to “think” not just remember facts given to them by the state. Even conservatives are guilty of this tendency of believing that by committing resources to “education” that they have done their job. They don’t consider the quality of education, only that someone is doing something educationally related. They don’t think of what the implications of education may be if the wrong things are learned, or the wrong interpretation of history is broadcast to young minds awaiting programming of their brain by trusted adults.
Michelle Rhee the popular education reformer at the heart of the movie Waiting for Superman is wrong when she says that education is the key to the success of American children. That cliché is overused and ridiculous. It is a mythology designed to preserve the education culture and their utopian vision for the world. Most of those people are well-intentioned human beings who simply love children and teaching them—but they do not consider in those assessments the quality of their love, or their intelligence as factors that can hold back children from living otherwise fruitful lives. They assume that they are qualified to teach just because the state has given them a license to do so—a license that meant the teacher had to comply with the state’s version of reality.
The way to alleviate these faux pas in education is to teach children to think. Why is Common Core so vile and evil? The reason is that the only way it can work is to limit the intelligence of the most brilliant and force them to only be as good as the weakest links. Our modern education system does not like making such value judgments—which is why they ultimately are failures. The belief with Common Core is that if children spin their wheels copying off students from countries reeking with statism, that success will abound and that such success can be had by not asserting value to the quality of the students or their educations. It cannot. If students aren’t taught first how to think, or how to be competent human beings, the education system will fail 100% of the time.
If the value is to produce students who will mindlessly serve the state, then modern education throughout the world is doing its job. But if the goal is to teach human beings to invent new things, start businesses, vote correctly, or mentor a child—they are way off the intended target and have no hope of getting there under the current circumstances. Education is more than just lip service—it is a philosophy. It can’t be memorized; it has to be a part of an individual mind. There is no way to cheat it. If garbage is put into a mind, then garbage will come out.
My daughter sent me a text the other day that featured a cartoon of a young person reading a book. The caption read, “Uploading data to the human brain.” What we feed our brains is what we ultimately become. If we read good books, think good thoughts, and use our imaginations to explore possibilities, we will have reasonable success in life. But before that can happen, “good” has to be identified, and stood behind. If on the other hand we put into our minds garbage like pornography, sports stats, trivial nonsense like global warming issues, political diatribes and that kind of thing, our minds over time will become encumbered with sluggish thought processes. Education is not good unless the value of good accompanies it. A well-rounded education is not exploring sexuality, worshiping the earth, or supporting teacher unions. It is about learning to think and living as a competent individual.
It is utterly shocking how many functioning adults in 2014 are incompetent fools. The only way I can avoid this incompetency is to not leave my driveway in the morning, because there are some really stupid people functioning in the world—which is evidence that our education system is a complete failure. Yet politicians want us to do more of this foolishness so they can get their fingers on federal money dangled like bait in a trap to supersede our state sovereignty. That is just idiotic.
It is easy to make clichéd comments about education without considering the implications and it happens all the time. But the answer is not in just hiring more teachers, giving more money to teachers, or building more schools. That is not enough. The real intent of education is in teaching people to “think.” Without thought there is no education, there is no mind, and there certainly isn’t any kind of future. Without thought, there is nothing—but empty promises and misery. And I want no part in that.
All evening there was a constant steam of interviews which went through Matt Clark’s WAAM broadcast table, most of which will be featured over the next couple of days. One of the funniest comments made over the course of the evening was Humphries reference to Hillary Clinton. During his speech he talked about the various RINOs in politics, people like John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, any of the Bush brothers, etc. RINO of course means “Republican in Name Only,” which is to say that those so-called Republicans have been terrible at preserving conservative ideals. They’ve been more interested in compromising with people who want to fundamentally change American life, and have done a great disservice to their nation. This is when Humphries said that Hillary was a “WINO,” a “Wife in Name Only.” That drew quite a laugh and it stuck with me throughout the night.
The “WINO” comment was funny because most people feel that Bill and Hillary Clinton have an open relationship where they have simply pulled a ruse on the American public for more than three decades of scandalous crusade. Their mission as Marxist loving young college students was to deliver America to the doorsteps of the Socialist International controlled United Nations and they pretended to be like every day Americans to concoct the ruse. Part of that deceit was to pretend that they are a traditional married, husband and wife–while at the same time advancing LGBT agenda points and a gradual erosion of American sovereignty to the chaos of the world cesspool. Does anybody honestly feel that Hillary would not do anything to become elected into an office, even if it meant committing herself to a loveless marriage in the typical European style of power arrangement? I don’t doubt it for a moment, and it is likely that she cannot even relate to a typical American romantic comedy because she does not have the kind of feelings in her life associated with “love,” “passion,” or “sexual longing,” as her primary motives appear to be exclusively—for her entire life—committed to social reform built on a progressive reference established by Marxism—which she learned in college.
It was good to hear Humphries say what virtually everyone was thinking—it was therapeutic and was the primary reason that most of the hundreds and hundreds of people came to the Cincinnati Tea Party Rally on a Tuesday night. They needed relief from the insanity of a world spinning out-of-control and into perpetual progressive madness. The people present were awake and all aware of the follies around them—and having so many people in such a state gives hope that the world will not degrade into a bottomless pit from which it will never return.
Matt bought a hamburger for me once the event was over at the bar. We barely placed our order before the kitchen closed as the rally went late into the evening. Humphries had already left as many others were leaving, but Matt and I hadn’t had any food all day, so a well-earned hamburger was just the thing. Kelly Kohls and some of her party joined us in the bar for a bit as the waiter brought us our food. Kelly laughed when she saw the incredible size of my hamburger, complete with everything on it, onions hanging over the edge with huge leaves of lettuce, largely cut tomatoes and a tremendously huge bun sprinkled with sesame seeds. Her son happened to be sitting next to me and I took his mother’s comments and expanded on it by saying that this was an example of American food. “You wouldn’t get a hamburger like that in France, or Spain, or Italy. In those countries they give you some silly little noodles and some crappy vegetables off on the side of the plate—and they consider it art. Their food is like their crappy little Fiat cars, their bad breath, terrible economies, and wimpy sports. Here in America, like this hamburger,” which I had to put all my weight on to smash together to fit into my mouth, “we like V-8 engines, fast cars, violent sports, guns and women in thongs.” At that point Kelly called me a few names and took her 15-year-old son away from my bad influence. I told her that her son was a guy, and that he needed to hear those kinds of things. She laughed and hit me in the shoulder and walked off. I didn’t blame her, after all she is running for a Senate seat, and she needed to maintain her respectability in the eyes of the masses. But I don’t. Hamburgers, fast cars, rock music, football and chicks with thongs are the kinds of things I think of when I think of America—and specifically freedom. So after the evening festivities the gigantic hamburger from the hotel bar complete with Coors beer was the perfect night-cap to a busy day.
Much of what was discussed at the Cincinnati Tea Party could be summed up into not apologizing for what Americans are, but rather, being proud of it. It is clearly time to stop feeling sorry for every other country on earth and to make ourselves less just to make other countries feel equal. I know I’m done with such things, and according to Matt, Doc, Rusty, Ann, and all the others, they are too. The biggest difference between those at the Tax Day Rally and everyone outside of that room is that the attendees have arrived first to a conclusion that is inevitable—that progressives like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and many others, have taken America to a bad place, and people don’t like it. My friends are the first to express that displeasure—and soon, so will the rest of the nation. The old WINO tricks won’t work this time, as an $18 trillion-dollar deficit looms over the richest nation in the world—caused by progressive mismanagement of American resources. And once the rest of society gets to the level of frustration that the people attending the Cincinnati Tea Party rally displayed on April 15th, 2014 in Eastgate, Ohio—WINO’s like Hillary will be in a whole lot of trouble—and I’ll celebrate with an even bigger hamburger. The secret to American excess is not that The United States consumes too many natural resources, but that it has produced so much—because of capitalism. If more nations throughout the world adopted capitalism over socialism, they’d discover excesses of their own and would be a whole lot less miserable.
The Overmanwarrior 
