Tag: Donald Trump

The Debt Clock at $23 Trillion: How the Trump “pro growth” plan is our only hope

A frequent reader here brought up an excellent point that has been bothering me regarding the amount of spending that we have in our government and our failure as a country to deal with the national debt which is presently almost at $23 trillion. I remember when it was only at $16 trillion and it was a big deal for the Republican platform, and clearly since Trump has been elected, it has not been a priority. Because there were essentially two problems that had been planted in American culture by those who wanted to destroy it for a transfer bail out into the United Nations, which was the strategy all along. The first of those problems was that we were borrowing at a high level to essentially chain us through regulatory compliance to the rest of the world who could then pull our loans and control us as a nation tossing out that pesky Constitution because as a nation we couldn’t afford to live up to it, and the second, we shipped all our jobs overseas so that there would be no way to pay the debt even if we wanted to. When Trump was elected his first method of attacking this problem was to stop the bleeding, which he has done. You can read the comment below:

When is he going to fight to lower spending? I like Trump for the most part. I love that he is pulling us out of Syria. But we cannot continue to spend like this.

Jason E Koslow

https://usdebtclock.org/

 

I hadn’t yet answered Jason because it required more than a five second answer, due to its very good point. If I know Trump the way I think I know him, which is quite well—I would venture to say that being an optimistic person that he is he plans to tackle this whole problem in the second term of his presidency now that the seeds for a great economy have been planted. And he plans to not do it by cutting, which many Republicans would think of as the first objective, but he wants to do it with growth. That is after all how he personally became a billionaire. In his mind, he plans to do for the country what he did for himself. Growth is the ticket out of debt, and he’s created the foundation to explode that growth.

Then you read his comments about why he couldn’t host the G7 Summit at his Doral golf course due to all the controversy and it brings to mind Jason’s point more succinctly. There are forces in the American government that are quite common, they persist actually into half the country that tend to vote for victimization representation in the form of Democrats. They don’t want to show off the potential wealth of America, they don’t want our billionaire president to show the world that he knows what he’s doing in building Doral. They’d rather the event happen in some government building with limited running water so that other countries not be so seduced by American capitalism. But for Trump that was precisely the point, to inspire more investment and that explosive growth that he has been counting on. And he was obviously disappointed in the small thinking of the press and the Democrats in general. Thinking small is not one of the things Trump has ever been good at and he has no desire to start now.

Under Trump’s next term which he has helped along with deregulatory practices and access to NASA, commercial space travel will become big business. Hyperloop transportation will become common language and the tremendous growth potential of his trade deals and bringing jobs back into the United States will contribute respectfully to the GDP. Then and only then will that clock begin to tick backwards and from my vantage point, it couldn’t happen soon enough. The great risk is that another year of this will put that debt up toward $25 trillion which is a major problem. That huge sum could be paid off with new space mining operations for rare metals. The amount of money that the commercialization of space could generate is stunning, and Trump is counting on those seeds to bloom to cover the debt. But he has to get elected first and for that to work, he has to protect what he has started from Democrats who want to torpedo it for their own future chances.

Which brings us back to why there is a debt to begin with. The Democrats wanted to crash the system, they set all this in place during the Obama administration and for Trump to stop it he would have to turn inward, which would have played into the hands of the Democrats who planted that seed long ago. It was their insurance policy for their own existence. What they didn’t count on was for Trump to come in and turn the ship around and for Republicans to stand behind his “pro-growth” vision. Trump trusts the innovations of the private sector even when they come from his enemies like Jeff Bezos. By getting government out of the way, the private sector could generate many trillions of dollars in additional GDP and that is the plan. But he can’t mess with the economy during an election year and start cutting our way to prosperity. We must grow. You can’t bring reality to people addicted to government services because that would end his election and the prospect for any future growth, so Trump is playing a big round of poker here, and he has a lot of chips on the table.

If it was anybody else, I’d worry. But the way that Trump handled himself personally during the 90s gives me the feeling that he can do it again with the American economy if he has our support. He certainly has my support. He has stopped the bleeding, now for part two, we must build up the blood. I would argue that an operating budget for America needs to be much less. But if we can turn the clock backwards with growth, well then, why not. I personally think there will be enough expanding market emerging in the 2020s to pay off our national debt and get to a positive position by the time we are settling people on Mars. But first the Democrats literally have to be destroyed as an opposition not just in politics, but to economic growth because for them the debt clock was a form of terrorism that was supposed to go off by now, only we elected Trump to bring back all our oversea business and to deregulate ourselves back to a growth based economy. I tend to think that one more election will do the job and free Trump and the supporting Republicans into launching those pro-growth initiatives. But we also must consider that the Democrats know all this and they are set to do anything to survive, and if they could destroy the economy in some way during 2020 to keep Trump from getting re-elected, then their debt clock becomes a driver again, and a means to destroy America and to merge it with a world management system. There is a lot of stake, and nothing that we can take for granted.

Rich Hoffman

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The Secret to Toyota: Guns’n’Stories in VR and the benefit of play

I’ve had a lot of interesting conversations with people this week wondering about me and they seem surprised that I know so much about Toyota manufacturing systems at a holistic level and that I play so many video games. And as I explained, I see the two as the same, not separate endeavors. To understand why the Toyota company did so well culturally in the realm of business is not in reading and understanding some magic book, or a three day course given in Tokyo where someone stands over you with a cane to beat you with it if you get the incorrect answer to a question, as many believe is necessary. You won’t get it from an MBA program from any college, its one of those things you either get or you don’t. In Toyota outsiders call it the Toyota Kata, which is doing something over and over again until the task is second nature. In their organization managers were successful in establishing a “kata” of success as defined by the target conditions management sets to achieve superiority in the marketplace. Simple. Yet the world struggles with this concept so it is my hope to help it out a bit with this little article.

Playing video games is an excellent way to develop an internal “kata” to use the Japanese word, for training yourself to get used to winning. To identifying what the target conditions for victory are, then learning the rules for getting there. Every video game may be different just as every workplace can have its challenges, but the idea is the same for everything. Once you learn and expect to win, by nature of instinct you’ll get used to identifying what target conditions need to be found to support victory. Once you can do that in a video game, you will train your mind through a kind of kata to finding it everywhere, in relationships, in business, with your children, in society—everywhere. So, it should not be such a surprise that I play many hours of video games per week. The byproduct of that behavior pattern is to constantly push myself to complete those games and to win whatever the parameters of victory are. Knowing what victory looks like is half the battle and so many people just haven’t trained their minds to measure reality in that way, especially adults.

I have a new VR game for my PlayStation called Guns’n’Stories: Bulletproof which was an absolute delight to me. It is an amazing virtual reality shooting gallery type of game where animated villains attack you from all directions while you stand in the middle of various wild west towns gunning them down with a multitude of very fun weapons. I completed the story mode of the game over this past week and found it wonderfully enchanting, a nice vacation from the rigors of daily life. And I was replaying several of the levels last night while I had the television on listening to Fox News and the reports that the Democrats stormed out of the President’s office over the troop pullout in Syria. I took a moment to think about how much information was pouring into my brain, between the VR headset and furious action from the game as hundreds and hundreds of bad guys came at me to shoot down as fast as I could, then the news broadcast going on in the background as my wife was telling me about all the events of her day, it was a lot. But I’ve trained my mind to deal with all that, and that isn’t that much more unique than a typical day at the office.

The difference between Toyota, or most Japanese companies, is that they have not forgotten how to play with ideas as a culture whereas we have in the West, from Europe to North America. We look at work as, well, work, and the Japanese don’t, its just another part of their life. They enjoy the work most of the time and that is one of the key ingredients to Toyota’s success as a company. Playing a lot of video games over the years allowed me to do much the same with my own life, there isn’t always time to play a football game with a bunch of people, or to go shooting somewhere that you can actually shoot targets by the hundreds of thousands, or fly around in some vessel engaging in dogfights. All of that is play, but more seriously all those games have objectives toward winning the game and in playing them the target conditions for victory are always occurring. You as the player must discover them through playing the game. And the benefits continue long after the game is over because the process has wired into your brain the ability to discover target conditions in everything, even when you aren’t playing video games.

I watch so many adults struggle in life over this very basic misconception. They wonder why their wives don’t love them or find them attractive anymore as they complain that their car is in the shop again, their house isn’t big enough, and that they are overlooked in their jobs for the next big promotion. They ponder why their kids seem indifferent to them as they grow up because they have sacrificed so much as the parent to give them a good life and they feel unappreciated, and of course all those behaviors show up in their work. At 5 PM on the nose they are leaving for that long drive home where they are met in the kitchen by an indifferent spouse with their own version of the same problems. Then when talking to me, they say, “video games are for kids. I’m busy making a living and living in reality.” Of course, to that I say, “reality is defined by your interpretation of it.” If you don’t have the tools intellectually to make reality work for you, but rather against you, then its no wonder you are miserable.” In truth, by playing games, video games or some sport for fun, you are actually helping train your mind to identify target conditions for success, which is what Toyota as an organization does for all the employees that work for it. They know how to define success and getting there becomes a kind of game instead of feeling like just more pointless work. Give people that autonomy, you give them more than a good job, but a good life.

It is always a treat to me to play a cool game like Guns’n’Stories: Bulletproof in a virtual reality environment. After all, to me for that time that the headset is on, that is reality. And to take a break in that kind of world is a real treat. Whether its actual reality or virtual reality the objective is the same, to define target conditions and endeavor for a win. By achieving victory, the mind gets used to seeing and striving for the parameters of victory, and if truth be told, that is the key to the Toyota Kata. Knowing how to win and learning to strive for the ways to do so. Empowering people to win and share in the ownership are the keys to any success. So, from that vantagepoint, video games aren’t so silly, but a good tool for training the mind in how to learn to win.

Rich Hoffman
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Hunter Biden is a Loser: Giving the “Rich” a bad name as a typical government looter

My favorite part of the Batman movies is the wealth and justice aspect of the hero and how he uses his resources to do good in the world. A world that would otherwise be bleak if not for his efforts. That is the story of Bruce Wayne, a kind of modern Zorro, who did the same during the American expansion period in film. And so it was in the most recent story telling exercise of the Batman movies where the villain Joker was emphasized that my favorite character by far in that film was Bruce’s father Thomas, presented in the blockbuster film ‘Joker’ as the rich mean villain. Thomas was the kind of rich person that I understand, as most of the people I know best in the world are all rich and millionaires by status. They are not the villains that Karl Marx and his followers would make them out to be, they are examples of what people should strive to be. They are only villains to those too lazy to do the work of becoming one themselves.

Just like in real life, all rich people are not equal. Some make their money by working hard, smart, and better than their rivals. Some loot off those efforts and become wealthy by providing access to other people. So not all people making over $200K a year are equally part of the 1% that movies like the Joker seek to attack. There is no place in America where a room full of wealthy people dressed in formal attire watch movies together while the poor protest outside. That thought might exist on college campuses and liberal bastions of panic and anxiety, but they do not happen in America where everyone, no matter how educated, how poor, what their family name may have been, has a shot at success based on the merits of their life. Yet the very kind of people who are most demonized for their improper allocation of money are those like Hunter Biden who was the son of a powerful Vice President who was paid for access to the American government as opposed to Don Jr and Eric Trump. The Trump kids were put to work by their father to earn what they made where-as Hunter Biden was just a nameplate and leverage for the clueless Joe Biden and his power given to him by the most villainous means possible, political leverage of a fictional aristocratic brokering firm called the United States Government.

You can almost feel sorry for Hunter Biden who appeared on Good Morning America this week in an attempt to answer Trump’s criticisms of his family. Looking at his face and general non-verbal impressions, I couldn’t help but think “drug abuser” with his sunken eyes, and his timid personality. Not exactly the kind of guy a woman would want to marry if they wanted a reliable husband to cut the grass and bring home a steady paycheck to keep the refrigerator stocked. Hunter Biden is a player and now at this stage in his life he is looking over his back more than he’s looking forward, because everything he has done in life has been given to him, so he fears that someone will take it away.

But what would anybody expect from a father who looted from people his whole life and gained power because of the threats of his regulatory burdens that he could otherwise place. For Hunter Biden to sit on so many boards and be paid so well for them is an obvious payoff to allow those companies to function without the threat of a senator to leverage them for some loot like a pirate on the choppy seas of capitalism. People like Joe Biden don’t make things and do things to make their money, they are simply government pirates who steal from those who do, and that’s where their power comes from, in the regulatory power we give them as a government. Companies looking to mitigate their risks with intrusive governments solve that problem by putting the kids of powerful people on their boards to keep that regulatory burden from happening. John Kerry’s kid comes to mind as well, it’s a common practice in what we call “the swamp.”

The type of wealth that the Trump kids come from is earned and built. It doesn’t come from stealing from those who do things in life, but it is the type that comes from hard work and efforts at expanding the economy. When President Trump built his wealth, he used to put cash in the pockets of people like Biden to keep government away from his businesses, just like everyone else feels they need to do. But that type of wealth is far different than being paid 50K per month to sit on a board of directors and sniff cocaine all day with loose women to appease a senator who loots for a living. That’s a far different thing, you don’t see the Trump children just getting jobs on boards because their dad is the president. They made all their money before he became president. Him sitting in the Oval Office actually costs them a lot of money in opportunity cost. But they have decided that the long-term vision of the Trump name is more important than a few million more dollars from a foreign hotel deal.

Yet the question of wealth value is to demonize it all and to prop up the losers who perpetually come up short in life due to their low ambitions. In the movie the “Joker’ it wasn’t an accident that Thomas Wayne was confronted by a person who thought he was the illegitimate child of the billionaire while he was taking a piss in the bathroom. They could have framed the scene anywhere, but the filmmakers chose to do it in the bathroom in a vulnerable position for Wayne. Wayne was disgusted at the future Joker for all the reasons many people who work hard to overcome obstacles are when confronted with those who give in to anxiety, weakness, and laziness. The kind of people that Thomas Wayne represented in that Joker story do work hard and use their ambition to overcome obstacles, so they are naturally offended when some loser comes up to them begging for money and trying to use victimhood to extort resources from them through guilt or a threat of violence. They know that the way to appease those types is to put their kids on a board of one of their companies to placate the politics. In the case of Thomas, he was just planning to run for office and solve the problem himself, like the real-life Donald Trump did.

Trump was famous for saying that he would fire his own kids like a dog if he thought they were lazy, so he instilled in them a work ethic that is obvious to this day. They would be somebodies with or without their father being in the White House. But Hunter Biden would be a big time nobody if his father was not a senator for his entire adult life. That is the difference between a winner and a loser, and the value of the wealthy and the wealth acquired by a looter. They might both have money, but not all of them contribute to the betterment of civilization. But all are demonized by the Karl Marx anarchists and big government socialists who want everyone under their thumb for threat of reprisal. And for Hunter, that is why he is a loser. It’s not because he was unfortunate enough to be born into the Biden family, but because he was too lazy to build his own way, and instead rode on his dad’s coattails. He is rich, but he’s still a loser and everyone can see it.

Rich Hoffman

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Trump’s Illustrious Base: Why the President’s pull in Syria is a great thing

Several of the weekend commentators on Fox News seemed spent after a few days of President Trump’s efforts where they were astounded at some of the things he had been saying. Even Republicans were showing their frustrations as Trump was pulling troops out of Syria to let Turkey and the Kurds fight it out and allow the region to do what it needed to. America is the number one energy producer in the world, the global oriented despots can no longer justify such troop movements to “protect” oil in other lands. We have our own thank you, so why else would we send troops all over the world to stabilize other countries? Trump managed to piss off everyone, yet his approval numbers don’t seem to be moving no matter what anybody tries to do to him, which is mystifying all the dirty tricks that politics knows to play. So, both sides grudgingly admitted that Trump was playing to his base as if that diminished the efforts, and it is there that our present topic is concerned.

When I talk about our education system, and I mean the global education system, the teacher in the front of the room preaching about things from the vantage point of a democracy, where the many rule, it is quite clear to me that it has been wrong for the human race. It doesn’t work, and when the adults of our lives try the same tactics, they used in grade school to push people into doing things, it becomes embarrassingly clear that it was always the wrong method of igniting young minds to life. The headlines on Monday morning regarding Syria were that several Republicans were breaking with the president over troop withdrawal and that this was dangerous in the middle of an impeachment hearing that was set to doom the president with an official congressional witch hunt to remove him from power. President Trump seemed completely unfazed, even angry and this left a mystified reaction to his critics on both sides of the political theater.

We are taught in our grade schools that if you want to go further, then you can only get there by bringing other people along. That you can’t accomplish much as an individual, that the key to all power, prestige and truth can only come by holding the hands of other people. So, in that regard, the perception of power is therefor in how many friends you have, how many people you can get to agree with you, and even the validity of a thought is based squarely on how many people join your alliance. The value is in people and their buy-in to your concept. However, that is not how it is in actuality. For many people not skilled in leadership, they have no choice but to make alliances with the masses. They may not be the strongest, so they make peace with people who might beat them up. They may not be the smartest, so they must find a way to acquire information they are not capable of obtaining. Yet true innovation and leadership do not come from such places, and our education system should strive to make more people self-reliant in their thoughts and actions to build more leaders for which the world is starving.

Trump like all great people of instinct listens to people and measures their reaction to things, but he is able to make decisions as a self-reliant human being. The trouble with the Beltway culture is that everything was built as a “go further together” type of endeavor, so very few people do anything on their own, including using the restroom. “I have to go to the bathroom; would you like to come too?” That is the kind of world that our education system has created, and it is short of what reality requires. Trump is that type of individual who does not need validation for his opinions. He doesn’t need a bunch of generals to tell him whether or not we can get out of Syria. He can make that decision based on his observances. He doesn’t need the threat of impeachment to control him into the warm arms of his political party for support, because he knows he can beat both fronts. So why yield? They need him more than he needs them.

Our education system, and thus everything that comes after, our adult lives, our business conduct, our politics, philosophy, everything is built on the childlike state of needing the approval of our peers because as young people that is the only measure we have to learn from. However, a good confident person quickly learns that society can only go so far. The true innovators must go into the scary depths alone, because groups and their opinions are slow, and the weakest link then decides how far into the dark you can travel. The greatest treasures in life come from individual experiences and the leadership that comes after. The masses are always willing to follow the brave soul who goes into the scary places, so that they don’t have to match that level of insecurity. And that is the way the world works. Its not to take the strong and make them as weak as the weakest links, its to encourage more people to become stronger and more independent, and for those who never develop such a level, to learn to be a good steward as a follower, which most are happy to live with.

Those assumptions are why the Beltway types just can’t admit to themselves what President Trump’s base really is, they refuse to see it, even though it is right in front of them. That base is very powerful, and most politicians would dream to have it. The Democrats certainly don’t have it and they want it desperately. So, all they can do is criticize it. And older Republicans who have bought into that liberalized education system of everything must be done together is reluctant to accept the premise that the reason for the folly was so that the weak could feel part of the process. And when I say weak, it’s not so much a criticism as much as it is a reality. Some people are lazy, and not naturally intelligent. They lack the drive to become the most they have the potential to be, and that’s fine. They can be the followers, because the world needs them too. But they don’t have a right to cripple our existence so they can feel equal to the most ambitious, such as President Trump obviously is. Their hatred of him is not because of anything he did, but it’s because he has made it clear that he doesn’t need them and that is a very insecure position for them to be in. And they aren’t happy about it. But there is a base of American opinion out there who would support someone like a Donald Trump regardless of whether or not he was a Republican or a Democrat, but because he is a free person who can stand on his own reckoning. And that’s who we want in the Executive Branch. Not the politics as usual antics of poor education philosophies and group think. But the lone, solitary thinker who can act without the influence of institutionalized contributors. And for that reason alone, he will win again in 2020, and neither side of the political spectrum will understand why.

Rich Hoffman

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Trump’s Minnesota Speech: A new class of leaders only America could produce

Well of course it was OK to enjoy the Trump speech in Minnesota a few days ago. I certainly did, and most of the people I spoke with in the aftermath did. Trump is saying what we all have been feeling for a long time, and it feels good to hear someone else say it. I would go on to say that if you have the opportunity to support a business candidate on your upcoming ballot, like I do for our local school board in Jim Hahn. Its not that you’ll get someone like Trump, but the differences between a battle-hardened representative from the private sector and someone just looking to be part of the government employment network is quite clear at this point. And when I say that I’m not talking about a person who has learned to navigate corporate America as a mere employee, but a business owner or member of top management who has learned to work under pressure and great risk to be successful, and to bring that swagger to management in government. The real truth to the reason that so many in the Beltway culture hate Trump is not because of what he says or does, but its simply because they can’t compete with him due to life experiences. You can’t fake it until you make it at the level Trump is at as a person, and that drives people who do crazy, because they can’t hold up.

The wonderful thing about President Trump and all his independent wealth is that it has given him a freedom the rest of us have around our dinner tables and among our peers to vocalize his true passions where others who gained their status in life by licking the boots of someone higher on the steps of life then gaining access to new opportunities. Trump is and has been for all his life free of that behavior and it has given the world a unique personality to deal with these government problems and I think its just wonderful. Trump is a product of what kind of person can be produced in America. Running businesses certainly help mold that type of person, then gaining independent wealth is an attribute that is quite rare in the world.

The adage that we all answer to someone is one of those statements that was created to prevent people like President Trump from ever seeing the light of day and is a falsehood. The truth is, and most successful people know it, is that once you show that you have something special in the world, people don’t control you, you control the people who want what you have. That power can be hard to deal with and it can wear on you that everywhere you go that somebody want’s a piece of your time and energy. That is a byproduct of success. But it’s a truth about the way the world works that government bound politicians do not understand and are quite terrified of, the self-reliant person who does not fear their legal bureaucracies, the leverages over corporate America with more rules and regulations, and other shackles placed upon independence to prevent people from knowing that it is they who make the world tick, not the political class. When you are truly free and at the point of the spear the way Trump has been for all of his life, due to his family giving him an obvious leg up in life, then the understanding of how to manage circumstances where lesser people are involved becomes much easier. That is why Trump can go up on a stage like he did in Minnesota and throw back color to his accusers and have a lot of fun at their expense, because they don’t own him, and therefore, when he makes himself available to us, the voters, for representation, it’s a rare opportunity.

The roots of that adage about control is that really, until the United States emerged, no matter how successful you may have been in life, you had to bend the knee to someone somewhere, likely a king or queen. Perhaps even a religion. Nobody was self-reliant to the point Trump appears to be. But in American culture bending the knee to anybody isn’t a requirement. Having some special skill is what gives you that freedom, and once people know you have it, you find yourself in command of your circumstances. Circumstances don’t control you. Trump could have been another rich kid who just sagged his way through life jumping from one Lamborghini to another with beautiful women hanging on his arm, a different one every night looking to use their looks as capital to secure a better life for themselves using their assets while they could, before their flower wilted. But Trump took big chances and had won at life and he has emerged as a person forged from those risks, and that has given him the kind of freedom and confidence that it took to stand in that 20,000 person arena even as the House threated impeachment, and to stick it to all the lesser people quite spectacularly. Sure, he was saying what most of us have been thinking, but we often don’t get to say it from such a platform. And to hear such a thing to people who have spent their lives licking boots to get their promotions, their sexual partners, and their material assets is one of the most terrifying things they will ever hear. Because here was a person not afraid of what “others” might do to him, because he knew they were powerless to do it. And in the audience were people who felt the same way and wanted that level of freedom for themselves. What would become of those who did live that way, that is the root of their fears.

Particularly the way that Trump talked about the Joe Biden scandal and the FBI attempted coup against his administration was the difference between a person who truly had independence in life from their own personal wealth gained not through favors, but through honestly earning the money. Nobody else in Washington D.C. can claim such a benefit. They do owe somebody something everywhere they go. The politicians are always begging for money and trading favors, the attorneys are always trying to get a good case arranged through those connections, and the government employees on payroll learn to toe the line so that they don’t lose their cushy jobs that they know they wouldn’t get anywhere else. People who live their lives in such a way, which is most people, don’t have the kind of freedom Trump has to say what he thinks whenever he wants to say it. But America as a country is designed to produce people like Trump. And they are out there, some of them occasionally want to run for public office, perhaps more now than before Trump came along. But whatever their status, watching Trump give his speech under a lot of pressure, and to see him have so much fun as the heat of the pressure cooker was obviously being turned up, is something that only a seasoned veteran in business could relate to and it was obvious that due to that success we have a rare opportunity to get more Trump types in elected positions. Nothing would be better. Trump’s speech was more than just a defense of his positions and a strengthening of his base for a 2020 election. It was a spit in the eye for centuries of aristocratic controls that are coming to an end in our lifetimes for the chance at freedoms few have ever realized. And that is what the accusers of Trump are really afraid of. Their world is changing rapidly, and they know they won’t be able to hack it in the new one, for which we should all enjoy immensely.

Rich Hoffman

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The Fighter Donald J. Trump: He’s what I want as a president, impeachment is not an option

When people asked me why I was supporting Donald Trump way back even during the early days of the Tea Party, when he was just flirting with being president, it was because I knew two things had to happen in the Executive Branch, which would then cascade down into our overall government as a change agent, first whoever would run would need to be self-made and wealthy, to resist all the temptations that Washington dangles in front of people. The second is that they’d have to thrive off the chaos that was associated with Beltway culture and be essentially an overman, beyond the reach of peer pressure and the worm tongues that are associated with the Beltway culture of consultants which are as common as raindrops in a hurricane. My thoughts on this go way back into even the Reagan days of the 80s and have shown up in both of my published novels, The Symposium of Justice and The Tail of the Dragon. I knew it had to happen and Donald Trump seemed perfect for the job, so I supported him very early in the process for all the reasons we are now seeing. Very few people in the world could stand up to the bullies of Washington the way he is and enjoy it. We elected the right guy and I am very happy about it.

When you know you need to make a change, because things were not obviously working, then a change agent is essential. In all future elections due to this Trump presidency, more battle-hardened executives should find their way into school boards, trustee positions, and congressional seats which will change the nature of our political system for many years. As it has been it was largely washed up lawyers who couldn’t hack it in the private sector who ran to public office to pad their resume and perform law without the burdens of true competitive markets. And that is what’s wrong with most of what we have in politics, we elected the wrong people for all the wrong reasons because essentially, we didn’t have a choice. People like Donald Trump never really made it to a ballot, and if they did, they didn’t want the public pressure that usually comes with it. Trump did, in fact he thrived on it. And now that Democrats are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him with this impeachment attempt, I trust that he will throw back at them an entire house. I will back him on that 100% because they deserve everything he can and will throw back at them to win. Yes, winning means everything, even if it destroys an entire political party, which I suspect may very well happen.

This is why I picked supporting Ross Perot over George Bush way back in 1992. Perot was a self-made person and had all the battle-hardened sensibility that business tends to carve out in people. But he didn’t care much for the chaos and fights that were required. He had a lot of fight in him, but he didn’t thrive off it like Trump does. Ultimately, that’s why he only acquired 19% of the vote and we ended up with Bill Clinton. Even then what we ended up with was better as a change agency because it was starting to root out the soft Republicans from those who were truly conservative, so in that way, party politics was on a track to what ended up being the Tea Party. It took a few decades and people thinking about these things long and hard, but we ended up better than before. Not even the media sees that change because they have been in a bubble for that entire time marching to some viewpoints that started way back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. For example, due to Ross Perot shaking things up in the Republican Party we ended up with the Newt Gingrich Contract with America, which everyone generally thinks started moving things in the right direction. Gingrich was and still is considered a rough and tumble conservative by the standards of the Beltway culture. But to a lot of people he’s not nearly strong enough. A few years ago my wife had a chance to meet Gingrich and shake his hand. She embarrassingly refused because he wasn’t nearly conservative enough for her and she walked away leaving him uncomfortably standing there with his hand out with no reception. That’s how it really is in politics.

Many of Trump’s supporters are like my wife. I can wine and dine with people and find common ground with anybody in spite of my strong opinions on this literary exchange. I could make a friend out of the devil and have him wash my car while he was at it, so naturally I have no problem shaking the hand of people like Newt Gingrich. I’ll take an alley who wants to play tough in the Republican Party even if he does disappoint me from time to time. But not my wife. She’s either there or not and many people who pull the trigger for Trump at the ballot box are similar. They don’t care for politics, they want someone who will fight, and they don’t answer their cell phones for polls. If they don’t know the caller, they let it go to voice mail making modern polling nearly impossible. And now with a few years under his belt, Trump’s change agency is much more mathematically persuasive than anything Ross Perot did. The effects will be felt for years which is why Democrats are freaking out now. As bad as impeachment might end up looking for them, they simply have no other means of beating Trump in an election. They see the crowds, they know William Barr is sniffing around conspiracies they are in the middle of, and Trump has held his cards until this election year anticipating their moves. They are in deep doo doo, and I’m happy for Trump to go scorched earth on Washington D.C. which I suspect he is about to do because that’s his nature. Do anything to win, and he will which is just the kind of guy I voted for.

Even in 2012 when I wrote Tail of the Dragon reviewers and blurb contributors were pessimistic at my thoughts about government. But they can now see that it was every bit as bad and scandalous as I proposed. The coordination of the so-called “deep state” is scary. The way the media and the FBI have had their relationship exposed has been truly terrifying as its been unleashed to the public and that is just the tip of the iceberg. I always knew it was ugly and whoever was going to clean it up was going to have to do it from the Executive Branch and would need to be financially comfortable by other means besides what government provided, so that they were free of the levers of power that have corrupted Washington D.C. from its inception. President Trump is exactly what we needed when we needed it, and I am behind him completely hell or high water. We need him as a change agent, which is more important than any other factor if America is to survive for the next few hundred years. It will take the Democrats longer than that to pull themselves together after this upcoming election year, which is the best news of all.

Rich Hoffman
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Mike DeWine Caving into the Real Life Jokers: When evil gets their way on gun control and the good cower with appeasment

One of the reasons I continue to be angry at the Joker film is precisely due to the way the media and even Governor DeWine has attempted to advance gun control in the state of Ohio. For all the artistic sentiments of the Joker, and why I have been talking about it so much is because it clearly tells the story of how liberals view the world. In it, Arthur Fleck is given a gun by a co-worker for free, because this friend supposedly wants to keep the professional clown from getting beat up so much. The gun then ends of getting Fleck fired from his job when it accidently falls out of his outfit while performing for cancer kids. Then while being beat up on the subway by rich, Wall Street types, Fleck uses the gun, because he has it, to kill the three attackers which puts him on a path of psychopathic violence and murder. The short story is that it was access to the gun that made the Joker, and very little else. Then of course when such things happen in real life we expect pink Republicans like Mike DeWine to side with liberal mayors like the gun control advocate that claimed fame after the recent mass shooting there to push for more gun control—and the media applauds as all that activism takes place right under our noses and is sold to the stupid with films like the Joker.

I expect the Ohio House to destroy Mike DeWine’s “Strong Ohio” gun control measures which go way to far in expanding background checks and trying to create a path to removing guns from people who may be harmful to themselves or others as defined by friends and neighbors. With the amount of gun shots and bullwhip cracks that come from my house on a daily basis, DeWine’s gun control bill could mean trouble for me from nosy neighbors and family members who may be “concerned” about my sanity—because I believe strongly in the Second Amendment and like to shoot guns a lot. The spirit of the law does nothing to cause mass shootings because the real issues that inspire such terrible conditions were actually displayed quite brilliantly within the story of the Joker—an activist Hollywood culture that takes no responsibility for the violence of their films and hides their political activism behind “art.”

There was a scene in the Joker at the end where a murderous Arthur Fleck told Robert De Niro’s late-night comedy commentator that his murders weren’t political, that he was just doing them for the enjoyment of it. Yet moments later the Joker was being placed on the hood of a police car after he shot De Niro point blank in the face on live television making him a hero of the downtrodden. A riot broke out and it was the Joker who was its leader through his murderous actions, and it was clear that the message of the film to all the troubled souls out there like the real life Arthur Fleck might follow in his footsteps stepping from fiction to reality. Such a story could certainly be told of the extreme gun hating mass shooter in Dayton Connor Betts.

I certainly let everyone I know close to the Governor, which is quite a few people by the way, know how I felt about the intentions of his red flag law proposal and to his credit he did back off. Not just because what I said on Monday October 8, 2019, but thousands of people like me who enjoy shooting and make guns a fundamental part of our American lifestyle based on good legal necessity. But it wasn’t enough for USA Today, The Dayton Daily news or The very liberal Cincinnati Enquirer, the headlines against the governor was that he wimped out and didn’t go full “red flag” but instead proposed a “pink slip” system which places mentally ill Ohioans in hospitals for up to 72 hours. Well, why would we do that, especially if we’ve seen the Joker.

The core of the problem is in how we define mental illness, which I would seriously indicate could involve every single person who calls themselves a Democrat. Then of course if Democrats were in power, they would call every single Republican insane. The definition of such a thing largely then becomes defined by perception and it is a means to taking guns from citizens, then it becomes very dangerous. The trouble with everything that Mike DeWine proposed is that it is anti-Republican and it hurts me to say it, but he should have never even put his name next to a proposal of Democrat radicalism. Any gun control measure is a suggestion for more government expansion, more money for mental illness, more hospital care, more cops, more monitoring agents when the ones we have now don’t do enough as it is. It doesn’t deal with the real problem which is liberalization as defined in the movie Joker.

When liberals empower others to blame their issues on society, or “fairness” in general, the are creating a path to action for the next mass shooter. By studying all the recent mass shooters, we can see that most of them were outright Democrats, or just plain anarchists. Most of them abused drugs and came from homes without a father. Clearly those are the kinds of things that we should be thinking about, but we aren’t instead the violence is provoked by the left, especially in movies and political positions shown in the Joker, and it is they who advocate for the gun control to fulfill their aims of eradicating the American Constitution into a more United Nations friendly document. The political left is completely invested in this topic and it shows in their products. To see the level of hatred that Hollywood and the mainstream media in general has for gun ownership in America just go see the Joker. People might say that the messages are subtle, but to me they are as obvious as Chevy Chase’s Christmas lights on his house in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. The Joker movie was an outlandish example of liberal viewpoints against guns and how to manage mental health and was an open call to send other psychotic dissidents into the streets to do as Connor Betts did, and that is to kill people with guns so that governors like DeWine would cave in against their base and create laws liberals want.

Honestly, I’m tired of all those losers trying to step into my life and to change it with feelings of guilt, shame and the subtle threat of violence. Movies like the Joker and the countless hours of victimization programing we see on CNN, NBC, ABC and many others cause these problems. While seeing the Joker I noticed another Harley Quinn movie was coming out, which is the Joker’s girlfriend, and Disney is doing Maleficent 2. Hollywood continues to try to make the bad guys good and with it they give truly disturbed people an excuse to snap and go on mass killing sprees, then when it happens, they don’t apologize and ask for forgiveness. Instead, they take their money to some tropical island and demand for more gun control where losers like Mike DeWine get suckered into trying it. I guess I’m grateful that in Ohio we have a strong Republican House and Senate. Because if not for them, Mike DeWine would be a runaway train of liberalism and big government expansion.

Rich Hoffman
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The Joker: Todd Phillips activism is obvious, the villians are not the 1%

Everyone is talking about the Joker, the new comic book movie from Todd Phillips who set out to shake up the world and lured the very good actor, Joaquin Phenix out of retirement to perform the role. Critics are crazy about it, and conservatives understandably are very concerned as the direction of the film is clearly justification for the type of violence that we are seeing currently out of Antifa. I have not yet seen the film, but know enough, especially after watching the review from a person I respect in Grace Randolph seen below to get a clear picture of what’s going on. The allegory is clear, the Joker was a victim of a cruel society who decided that he’d either kill himself or kill other people. And the main perpetrators of his victimization was the father of Batman himself Thomas Wayne. There are many other contributing factors but ultimately, it was Thomas Wayne who serves very much as the Trump-like villain from the perspective of the Joker and without question there are many millennials who are reacting to the film the way Grace has in her review, feeling quite a lot of sympathy for Arthur Fleck—the character who eventually becomes the Joker.

I think movies like this are always good to play with and I admire all the ambition. On the business side the movie is a brilliant strategy, they kept the cost down, but they have all the quality, and obviously they have great buzz. I’m sure when I do see it that I’ll like it. However, the tragedy is that it obviously is a story that is intent to explain away evil from the perspective of victimhood and will undoubtably inspire others to yield to their sorrows and behave poorly in real life becoming maybe not so much the Joker, but the parasites who follow him in the fictional context and who do eventually kill Thomas Wayne and his wife in the film, which gives birth to Batman through the son Bruce. From there we all know the story, but how it mimics real life is what has everyone talking and that is the concern of our topic here.

In yet another Hollywood example the story telling perspective coming from within their view of the world is that the rich should be taxed and are ultimately evil. As members of the top 1% of society if is people like Thomas Wayne who are ultimately out there hurting everyone with their greed and climbs for power with a ruthless view of the world they control, and in the wake of their existence creatures like the Joker are born. To interview any Antifa member or really any Democrat today—especially the writers of Saturday Night Live, this Joker film is the Hollywood protest to the Trump administration and what they perceive is created by wealthy billionaires who look down their noses at battered personalities like Arthur Fleck and eventually get what they have coming to them for their lack of compassion, therefor becoming the murderous thugs of terrorism.

And I have no doubt that was what drove actors like Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro to this relatively small budget drama, was the political activism that would cascade off it. Todd Phillips as the director knew what he was doing, he has stated that he made the Joker film because this modern woke culture has spoiled comedy, and he’s not happy about it. As the maker of the Hangover films which I can’t stand, he feels he needs to address the situation and from his perspective within the Hollywood bubble he came at this subject with some interesting diatribes. However for many others working in and around the film, this is clearly and anti-Trump character study and a call out to what they are calling “the resistance” to put an end to his administration and to all those of us who elected him.

In the Batman mythology I have always liked the Wayne family and wanted to know more about Bruce Wayne’s parents. This version of the Joker villain from that mythology obviously turns that perspective on its head. Thomas Wayne is alluded to be the actual father of the Joker due to an illicit affair leaving the mother of Arthur to go insane with grief. And of course there is further evidence that money corrupts and has driven both Thomas Wayne and his wife to sheer evil due to their love of wealth sneering down their noses at the downtrodden. Given what Todd Phillips has said in public it is clear that what he is really feeling was illustrated in the film’s ending where it wasn’t the Joker who killed Thomas Wayne and his wife, it was the mob that he had inspired who did, and that is the dangerous message of this film.

Rich 1% types are all bad and need to be eradicated is the message. Thomas Wayne was originally supposed to be played by Alec Baldwin who has been playing a parody to Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live and Phillips wanted more of that in his film. Supposedly due to scheduling conflicts Baldwin didn’t make it, but the intention cannot be overlooked. Todd Phillips made a movie using the Joker as a character to inspire his own mob of anti-Trump troops and Hollywood quickly got behind the effort for the activism projected. They hope to do just as the Joker did, inspire the downtrodden to rise up and lash out against the corrupt politicians and their rich double lives, and to bring villainy to the American way of life using the excuse of victimization to drive their lust for revenge.

However, these kinds of stories never do the wealthy justice or truly grapple with the actual reality of these interactions. It is all too easy for those who are lazy in life to blame their circumstances for their predicament rather than overcome those oppositions with hard work and prudence. And that should be the story with the Joker, but as we all know, that character is the supervillain of Batman, so he was never supposed to be a good guy. But Hollywood is using that excuse to make an anti-capitalism film aimed squarely at the millennial generation and to put them into the streets as Antifia members, or whatever the latest version will be for the purpose of changing the political landscape. So people have a right to be angry at this film. But I would say that rather than be angry, make films of your own. The message can go both ways. Nobody should embrace their victimhood. They should instead seek to overcome that status for the benefit of all. Without question the new Joker film is an attack on the way of life that Trump voters support. But don’t do as they do and claim that it isn’t fair. Stories are perspectives and it doesn’t take much to tell a story that criticizes productions like this Joker. Who cares that Arthur Fleck was molded by a society that treated him poorly? The real story and the one that often doesn’t get told is that the 1% are in the extreme minority because they don’t accept their victimhood and that is how they get rich, because they don’t sit around crying about it. And they aren’t bad people as portrayed in the embodiment of Thomas Wayne but are elements that people should and could easily try to live up to. Because ultimately, the difference between Bruce Wayne and the Joker is that Batman sought to use his position to do good, and to be just, and to overcome his sorrow, not to yield to it. That is what makes him a member of the 1%, and that isn’t a bad thing, everyone should aspire to be thus.

Rich Hoffman

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Asking Questions: Elon Musk understands that answers are less important

This interview shown below with Elon Musk and the very popular YouTube Channel ‘Everyday Astronaut’ was remarkable in many ways, so it is worth sharing here for those who don’t find themselves exposed to these kinds of things. I thought both participants in this interview were covering some very extraordinary aspects of our current culture and how we are getting from here to there so to speak. For me, I think the concept and pace of engineering that is going on at SpaceX regarding the Starship MK1 is truly transitory for our civilization and is one of the most important things going on in the world today. I’m a huge fan of the work SpaceX is doing on many levels, and it didn’t surprise me to learn that Elon Musk’s primary philosophical motivation is science fiction, especially the work of Douglas Adams in his pinnacle work, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. There is of course a little Star Wars sprinkled in for good effect behind the scenes making this interview unusual in the boyish optimism displayed that is unheard of in government driven attempts at space travel and for one main reason, the understanding that its not always the answers we seek, but the question.

For me the work of Joseph Campbell has always been what has unlocked the ceiling of intellectual potential. It doesn’t matter what does it for an individual, it could be Douglas Adams, George Lucas or Joseph Campbell, what matters is that the creative work does something to unlock the limits of human understanding by provoking the questions that need to be asked, instead of always focusing on the answer. Answers to questions are relative to the interpretations of those responding. What matters more than anything no matter what the endeavor is in life is in discovering the questions that then need answers, otherwise the results are always ambiguous. For this Starship MK1 where conventional avionic development would favor composite construction, due to a lack of autoclave availability in such sizes and not wanting to wait for one to be built, SpaceX moved on to this stainless steel design, which is brilliant not just esthetically, but in function. It is an excellent example of how asking the right questions can change everything and bring to life the benefits of invention.

And watching Elon Musk give that interview was a true delight, not in that it was a stuffy discussion about how smart all the engineers are and how dangerous space flight can be, but it was beholding the energy of a child who just wanted to play with new toys for the sake of discovering new questions to ask where smart people could relish in answering those ponderances. To do something for the joy of it that changes our perception of reality is quite an important thing to do and it all starts with the mechanisms of discovering the questions that need answers, otherwise answers without questions have no relevancy. It is the question that matters more than the answer.

This is certainly the case with all leadership functions, and when people wonder why CEOs or presidents of companies are so important to growth and prosperity it is for this basic function. A company can hire hundreds if not thousands of people to answer questions, but often it is only a small number of leadership who knows how to ask questions drawn out from obscurity to set people on a pace to discover an answer. If the questions are never asked, then what work is there for people to do to resolve it? So the creative aspect of something like building this new Starship is that Elon Musk thought to ask the questions of, “why can’t we make it out of stainless steel.” “Why can’t we fly it to Mars.” “Why can’t we refuel in space?” “Why, why, why.”

When humans stop asking questions is when they cease to become effective in their roles, and their intellectual decline is not long behind. Children naturally ask lots of questions, but we are all taught that at some point, maturity means you have the answers and questions are less and less asked—which is the state of decline for any culture. Seeing Elon Musk and his engineers at SpaceX asking lots of questions that often outpace what reporters even think of considering was refreshing because its not something we see much of these days unless you happen to be at a SpaceX media event, or a gathering of geeks and freaks at a local comic con. The optimism of those events is not in the answers, but in asking about the possibilities—the what if scenarios, even in science fiction ponderances. For Musk ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ inspired him to ask lots of questions and the results of those pursuits is in the creation of very wonderful things, like the Starship MK1 complete with its 6 Raptor engines carried to orbit by 37 others in the Super Heavy booster powered by cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen.

Innovation is always directly connected to having the ability to ask questions and to provoke a quest for answers, and that is the reason that everyone in the world is not equipped to be a leader at the level of a CEO. Its not the work that is important, the spreadsheets and presentations that are often associated with such roles, it’s in the ability to ask what if questions and to set the mind of others on fire seeking answers. A society without questions is one that is on the decline victimized by their own stagnation. And to see Elon Musk so alive with enthusiasm the way a seven-year-old might be is refreshing because we can all see the benefit. Musk when presented with a problem such as, “sir, we can’t find an autoclave anywhere in the world where we can build the fuselage out of composites.” “Well, what other material can we make it out of?” Thus, we have a question that unleashes a new technology and means to build very large craft to enter into space. Otherwise, in less innovative companies driven by less ambitious leaders, the engineering staff would have forced the project to remain on a path to stay within the confines of the accepted practices for aviation, which would be composite construction as someone builds an autoclave of the proper size.

Perhaps more important than asking the right questions is the ability to move quickly, and in that regard, that too comes from the ability to ask questions to keep everyone’s feet moving. Entering market share while imaginations are still hot is more important than all other aspects of development and the pace of engineering at SpaceX is remarkable because the employees are allowed to ask lots of questions and to drive innovation toward the proper answer for questions that are pursued beyond relativity, but in the abstract rules of science which are not discovered by any other means but in asking questions. The more questions the better. And when questions are asked, we as human beings come alive with that same excitement that we had as children discovering things for the first time, and that is what will ultimately save us. Its not the science we discover in the process, but in the quality of the questions we think to ask no matter what the means is in discovering which questions to ask as adventure demands the contemplation of a thinking species.

Rich Hoffman

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Bob Iger’s ‘The Ride of a Lifetime’: Forget the social justice, just tell the story

I am not an anti-Bob Iger guy. As the head of Disney, I have been willing to forgive that he’s a liberal because I think he has done a pretty good job as a CEO in making that company one of the most powerful media companies in the world—arguably the biggest. Personally, I love Disney, but my interests often dwell in the challenges that corporations have in creative endeavors which obviously is a challenge the bigger a company gets. In that regard, Disney has been an interesting study and its not easy. After all, media is changing and its hard to get out in front of that change, and Iger has tried to do his best, and most of the time, he’s been right. However, with Star Wars he did blow it which I have talked about many different ways and I was very interested this week in reading his new book, ‘The Ride of a Lifetime’ that he admitted as best he could that he had some regrets about not following George Lucas’ story treatment for the latest trilogy. Clearly if Disney had handled that situation better, the Star Wars brand would not be as fractured as it is now. Iger took this opportunity in writing this book to throw the fans a bone and offer an apology which should take the edge off the activism for the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker film coming in December.

Iger’s book was good and insightful providing several examples of learning as he went along especially handling characters of great talent, like Steve Jobs and George Lucas in painting a picture of that very fine line in using massive corporate power to tell a story, when the best of what a story is comes from individual experience. Personally, after The Force Awakens came out, I was not happy and it took me a long time to give Star Wars a chance again. Largely for me it was that I had grandchildren who could use the stories the way I had shared them with my own kids. I raised my family on Star Wars so it seemed like a shame to throw everything out the window just because Bob Iger thought he needed to corporatize Star Wars to protect the brand. After all, from his point of view, Lucas was selling off the Star Wars property to let Disney take all the risk of making the next trilogy even if they might not be big billion dollar sellers at the box office the way that the market is lined up these days. Lucas thought he was selling Star Wars to a friend who would protect the brand for the long view. And the fans split along those lines. Now before the next film Bob Iger is doing just that, he’s reaching something of a compromise in getting back to the original Lucas vision, but it may be too late. Or maybe not. I’m willing to give it a chance for the reasons I mentioned. Because the upside is far too valuable.

I often talk about Star Wars as being more than just an entertainment franchise. Mythologically Star Wars is one of the hottest modes of storytelling that we have seen in all our human lifetimes. Even screwing up the canon storyline which takes place over thousands of years, Star Wars and the power of Disney and Lucasfilm before it, produces an enormous amount of cultural content, from books, television, video games, to of course the movies. The amount of material that there is from Star Wars has more of an impact on our culture than most religions and has far more power than governments over the minds of a population. And Star Wars is truly a global endeavor, no matter where in the world that you go, people know the brand and something about the stories. There are very few entertainment options that have that kind of power, so managing all that power is tricky business under even the best conditions. But at the heart of the Star Wars debate is the long desired human trait to understand free will, immortality, and the nature of spirituality. Even though the stories are kid’s stories, the questions they ask are quite large and have the tools to put minds on a higher place, exhibiting the best attributes of science fiction as a platform.

Iger’s mistake was that the very same skills that have made him a great CEO, that certain ruthlessness that you have to have to trust your own instincts are the same problems that caused him to second guess the Lucas story treatments which have now alienated fans. The Lucas story was set to take the characters that had been built through many decades of novels right into a philosophical story that might have been more like The Empire Strikes Back and less like a Star Wars greatest hits like The Force Awakens was. Iger had doubts that people would spend a billion dollars at the box office to explore the nature of the Whills and the concept of immortality within the universe. But in the end, because he held everything too tight, Disney killed the property anyway.

For me the interesting thing that Star Wars explores, that isn’t covered anywhere else in all earthly cultures is the very different approaches between oriental philosophies and the occident. Oriental obviously being collectivist in nature and the occident, focused on individual free will. The parts of Star Wars that works is the occidental part. The parts that people often don’t like even if they don’t consciously understand why is the oriental portions. However, the oriental aspects are important to the story telling so not every Star Wars story can be a billion-dollar grosser which is hard for a corporate spreadsheet to show to investors. But the study of the philosophy does drive merchandise sales for decades if done properly, and now ultimately Iger appears to understand that the Lucas vision should have been followed without his tampering.

Even for those not too interested in entertainment and pop culture aspects, the Bob Iger book is a good read and well worth the time. The selling of ideas is a tricky business after all. Speaking for myself my dealing with some of the people mentioned in Iger’s book left me wanting to live in exile just as Luke decided to do in both versions of the cannon, the extended universe and these Disney stories. And that is a challenge explored in the great book of philosophy called Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The problem remains and this is true of both Lucas and Steve Jobs who merged with Disney while he knew he was dying of cancer so that their companies could live—no matter how much liberal Hollywood types and creative geniuses want to talk about the independence of their craft and the superiority of ownership over corporate rule, ultimately the temptation to use big corporate engines to assume risk is where they always go wrong. Or is it really wrong? If Iger does make things right with fans I would argue that there are many more Star Wars story telling options for the future because of Disney ownership than without it. Many more books, more theme park tie ins, and many, many more visual mediums than if George Lucas had held onto the Star Wars brand. And with something with as much story to tell as Star Wars can tell Lucas was right to sell it to Disney. The mythology can explode so long as everyone understands the objective. And after reading the Iger book, I am sure he does. The question is, is it already too late? I certainly hope not. I’m rooting for him; I’d like to see everyone come out well in the end.

Rich Hoffman
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