It’s always the cover-up that brings to light institutional failure because the participants will stoop to no low to protect the organization of which they’re a part. With the same denials seen during the Penn State child molestation case where thousands of individuals protected Jerry Sandusky because of his legendary contributions to the football team’s defense, employees of the IRS are willing to do the same to keep their jobs and protect the institution. The IRS employs over 100,000 employees all across the nation, 4000 of which work in Cincinnati alone. It is a giant monster of a bureaucracy and no reform is possible due to the billions of dollars that are stolen out of the treasury to pay for all those employees—which are largely unmanaged positions with payroll values as ridiculously high as public school teachers teeming with incompetence for the same reasons. The IRS is the judge, jury and executioner of their own crime syndicate and every human being that works for them places their individual judgment into the back of their minds serving blindly an institution created by government to perpetually grow uncontrolled of service to itself and nothing else. This issue was particularly well articulated by Darryl Parks during his midday radio show on 700 WLW during May 18, 2013.
Darryl was right; there isn’t a politician in the Ohio region who will take on the IRS scandal any further than the Ways and Means hearings because they cannot in all consciousness go against the government institution for which they serve. People who think in such ways have lost their individual judgment, or their value assessment for other individuals because they are in service to an institution—and their primary task at that point becomes to protect that institution with any sacrifice necessary to further its continuation. That means lying under oath is on the table of possibility because most individuals who serve like slaves to the government and all its divisions have lost touch with their individuality not fearing even eternity in hell if the preservation of the institution can be preserved.
Local Republican politicians have known about this IRS scandal for over two years. I know personally because I have been intimately involved with the Liberty Township IRS harassment case. John Boehner knew all about it. Rob Portman knew all about it. Mitch McConnell knew all about it, yet nobody did anything about it because they all primarily serve the institution of the federal government. They do not serve the interests of the individuals who elect them. This is the fault of our social commitment to altruism which informs these institutional soldiers that individuals should always sacrifice themselves to the “greater good” and that individual judgment should be suspended for collective causes. Republicans willingly play their roll in preserving institutions at the expense of the individual—even at a cost to themselves.
If I had a quarter for every kitchen I stood in where the children disrespected their parents and the women looked wistfully toward every horizon for some great lover to sweep them off their feet in a passionate romance even though their families all live well in large houses with perpetual financial security, I would have already amassed all the world’s wealth in my possession. I can speak that in Cincinnati I have been on 90% of the roads of the city covering approximately 150 square miles. And at one point in time I have stood in the kitchen of at least one house in every neighborhood in all those communities and always the stories are the same, especially when one or both parents work for the federal government. There is a soulless look on the faces of such bureaucrats that is the direct result of such lack of individuality. The children of these households are attracted to any presence which might contain some sense of individual structure and they flow toward these personalities like water seeking a glass to hold some semblance of their personal identities. These children do not respect their parents because their parents do not serve the family, they serve their employer—the government first and foremost which is hidden to nobody. The women in such relationships if they are still young and attractive have affairs with any man with tattoos, long hair and some external exhibition of individual merit. Later, when they’ve become shells of their younger physical bodies and such men are no longer attracted to them, they fill up the nail salons’ getting manicures and pedicures so that they can have some sense of individual pampering trying to rekindle their individual identities which has been consumed by the institutions they serve. The effort is to feel individually special, since their jobs do not offer such entitlement—as they are in service to an institution. The men fare far worse in such arrangements. They drink to evade their social realities, they have affairs to feel young so to hide from themselves what they’ve become, and they all end up the same way. By the time they hit 40 they are physical wrecks often overweight with skin problems, eyesight deficiencies, and heart illnesses. Their broken hearts are more mental than physical, but the muscle of the heart reflects the broken dreams of every bright-eyed little boy who wishes to save the world with heroics, only to discover that they are middle-aged sell outs afraid of their own shadows. They become empty husks as the institutions they serve drain them of all their worth feeding off them like a parasite till their deaths.
The commitment to institutions over individual need is the leading cause of misery in American culture and the IRS is filled with these types of people. Most of them are suffering from the same ailments shown above, even though they have new cars, nice homes, and comfortable retirement packages. The 4000 employees who work in the Cincinnati IRS fit the above profile by nearly 95%. They are willing to trade their lives away for the security the IRS provides as an employer because the pay and benefits are good—better than they’d get at a comparable job elsewhere. They do not care that the value they reap as institutional employees is stolen from millions of tax payers with looted money in a system that mimics slavery in every definition of the word.
This is why the IRS is allowed to attempt ruining the lives of individuals no matter how severe the imposition. This is also why the IRS has so many supporters who are willing to lie on its behalf. This makes the testimony provided to the Ways and Means committee on May 17, 2013 that much more potent because if the IRS employees are willing to admit to their specific targeting of individuals in the Tea Party case, then what deeper imposition are they actually protecting? The IRS didn’t just decide to release a statement that it knew would anger millions of Tea Party protestors like a match thrown on piles of dry paper sprinkled with gasoline. The IRS itself as an employee of the much larger federal government is seeking to protect the institution of statist government from something the same way that individuals protect the IRS from institutional scandal. The answer to what that scandal is defines the real scoop of the current problem. For my money, I would bet on Benghazi.
What a lot of people do not realize is that Tea Party groups are educational organizations designed to get back into touch with Constitutional ideals and beliefs that were valued upon the founding of The United States of America. In essence they are like a giant book club where members get together and talk about the merits of books they have read like The Federalist Papers and The 5000 Year Leap. That makes the recent IRS scandal against the Tea Party that much more preposterous, which has been going on for over three years now, culminating in the testimony in Washington that is currently going on. All government entities from local schools to the smallest cubical in the IRS administration offices have in their culture an inherit desire to advance statism—and anything that is a threat to their statism they deem worthy of attack. If a school levy is resisted, the advocates of the tax increase believe they have a “right” to destroy businesses and any individual who stand in the way of their funding. The IRS does the same on a massive scale acting as agents of tyranny to those who oppose statist oriented government objectives. So as a supporter of Tea Party causes, it gave me great pleasure to listen to the testimony of May 17, 2013 and hear occasional cheers coming from the crowd sitting in the balcony—since I personally know a good portion of the Tea Party patriots making such a ruckus there.
Unlike my Tea Party friends, my interest in politics extends beyond education. I am an aggressive type of individual and I sometimes do and say things many of them would never consider. For that reason I keep a bit of distance from them so to preserve my right to exercise my intentions without bringing negativity into their direction, particularly from groups like the IRS or any other government body. So privately, frequent readers of my Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom got together with Justin Binik-Thomas to deal with this whole IRS thing. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. I’m not the kind of person who believes in mass demonstrations and protests. I don’t do the group activity thing but I do respect those who do. The people who were in that Overmanwarrior’s group were not the types who would collect in mass to show the IRS that there is strength in numbers—they are the type of people who are prepared for the next tragic steps once government organizations realize that the Tea Party will not back down. They are people like Justin Binik-Thomas who won’t be frightened away from holding leadership positions in the Tea Party organizations, due to IRS intimidation. Knowing something about media relations myself, if those steps are necessitated, I don’t want my friends in the Tea Party splattered all over the news as a negative connection to me, so I keep a respectable distance—because that is where I am. I admire their kindness, and desire to learn. That much I share with them. But I have different methods for dealing with bullies that is much more direct than a lot of people feel comfortable with. I intend to direct that kind of attention toward one of the biggest bullies around, the IRS. So the meeting we had with Justin well over a year ago in the middle of this IRS scandal was to deal with those next steps should the IRS push the issue beyond pieces of paper and phone calls.
This is where the statist government types like Barack Obama are at a loss, and why they find themselves in the center of so much trouble. America is not Europe; we have not been beaten down by thousands of years of statism under kings and queens. America was founded by rebels fleeing Europe. Rebellion is so deeply ingrained into our DNA that it cannot be easily changed leaving a subtle and constant push against statism. Even though government education has trained the minds of generations toward statism, deep in their hearts Americans hate it, and they act against it any way they can. Most of the people I know are happy to peacefully protest, as they traveled to Washington to show a unified force against the IRS. But I prepare in other ways for events that are historically probable. I do not count on government to submit itself to the will of the American people, and I expect a fight from them. So I am always in a state of preparation. But what we all have in common, my Tea Party friends and some of my “other” friends who will strategically stay in the shadows until needed–is that we are not going to yield. Submission to government is not an option. We will never submit to United Nations authority, we will never submit to the tyranny of the IRS or any other government organization. I personally won’t even submit to a local trustee or zoning board. I don’t go out looking for trouble, I simply resist the imposition of my time, money, and energy by those who want something from me, and hope to force me to act in the way they desire through “thuggish” democracy—mob rule.
What else is the motive when a bunch of union inspired thugs attempt to vandalize the property of a target, or organize a mass protest in front of a home or business? What is the point of spying on a target so that weaknesses in their defense can be ascertained? What is the point of using the rule of law through the tax code or some other government inspired imposition to arrest a target and throw them in jail just because they have charisma and a following? The intent is to “win” at their intended strategic objectives, through force. The IRS did these types of things to the Liberty Township Tea Party because they wanted to send a strong message to a Tea Party group in John Boehner’s back yard. They wanted to tie up the efforts of the Tea Party into not protesting big government and national debt, but to put them on the defensive with red tape and bureaucracy. It was harassment with the intention of “changing” the behavior of the Tea Party groups. By targeting Justin Binik-Thomas the IRS wanted to send a message to the other Tea Party groups that leaders in such groups would be targeted—so to discourage leaders from naming themselves for fear of an audit.
I am happy to see the victims of this IRS harassment enjoying their moment in the sun. They deserve to look down from the gallery upon those who intended to bring harm to their lives—and the IRS did intend to use their authority to change Tea Party behavior. Justin deserves that satisfaction as does Rachael and the representatives of the Liberty Township Tea Party who were there for the testimony. It is nice to see justice being handed out where it is deserved. I’d rather get everything out in the open so that the pretense of politeness can be dropped and everyone can start dealing with reality.
As these scandals break, and justice comes to the aggressors of the IRS and the government that supports such a tyranny, what I believe will happen may be delayed, where the federal government out of frustration just turns on the American people with out-right force. Such peaceful resolutions are the intentions of the Tea Party and I’m happy to see them getting some form of justice from the efforts and worry they have expelled. But such victories are paper in nature and easily forgotten. They are not the kind of conflict resolution that I am thinking of. It would seem that for that, I’ll have to wait a bit longer as the government recalibrates for their next psychological assault. But what we all share no matter what the method is that submission is not an option. Statist government is not what we are willing to support, and there isn’t any amount of forced imposition that can change that basic premise.
One of the big problems the current White House is going through with all their scandals is due to a commitment to maintaining a positive public image instead of dealing with difficult problems. The White House is in trouble because they showed more concern about their public image than in doing what was right. Since The White House trouble is all the rage in the news at the same time the Lakota school system released their lip-dub video in dedication to Spina Bifida awareness comparisons were inevitable. While watching the video I realized that Lakota was guilty of the same sins as their progressive older siblings in the federal government. I had been prepared to say good things about the video where the efforts of the entire school had been pulled together with thousands of kids involved, but as I watched the obvious attempt to cater to Ellen DeGeneres at the 8:30 mark in the video the line was crossed.
What I see when watching this video is a very committed attempt to shut down the entire school system, teaching the kids nothing during the filming of the video except to act in a music video. The amount of work was extensive and would have required hundreds of labor hours to decorate all those halls, coordinate the student efforts, and ultimately put on a production that is so large that Lakota could implement their stated objective of getting their effort noticed by Ellen DeGeneres. They even rented a helicopter for the crane shots! Based on what I know about the personalities behind the effort it appears to me that Lakota is using the tragic conditions of Spina Bifida as a shield gaining national exposure and the money that comes with such public relations. The money Lakota needs is to pay for heavy ended labor contracts that are about to launch the administration into a budget deficit. I wish that it wasn’t the case, but after carefully looking at the posters on the wall and the behavior of the coordination, the effort is more about public relations and appeasing Ellen DeGeneres than actually helping Spina Bifida victims.
These kinds of public relations tricks have been executed against communities for decades. The White House uses these tactics overtly because nobody would dare call them what they actually are, because the villainy is hidden behind goodness. In the case of Spina Bifida the little girl featured in the video needs help, and she needs money for research into her ailment. But if people really wanted to help, the left-leaning video organizers would contribute considerable portions of their pay-checks—especially the nearly 1000 employees at Lakota who make more than $60K per year to help Spina Bifida. Some of the people involved in that video have quarter million dollar contracts. A personal check for $1000 to $5000 goes a long way, and those school employees can afford it. But the intention of the video however was to convince “other” people to contribute “their” money while the school gets a pat on the head by a national celebrity. The school can then use that endorsement during their next levy increase campaign. I would say the same statements to those organizers that I have said to the local socialites who stick their noses in local charity efforts—just write a six figure personal check instead of buying another Florida condo, then you will have done something good for Spina Bifida and the little girl in the video. But putting up decorations all over the Lakota schools using staff members and shutting down the entire education process to film a video for a public relations effort with the intention of attracting a day-time talk show host’s airtime is public relations, not Spina Bifida awareness.
When President Obama brought in the families of the Sandy Hook shootings to Washington and gave a speech with them in the background, the President was guilty of using the tragedy of that catastrophic school shooting to advance his anti-gun policies. The situation was exacerbated when those families were encouraged to sit in the Senate balcony to apply pressure on the Senators as they voted on a proposed gun bill pushed by the Obama administration. The same type of subtle manipulation is being done by the government school of Lakota. The attempt at consensus by Lakota to use victims of Spina Bifida as an excuse to appeal to a national audience is using the mechanism of charity as a malicious and manipulative endeavor. Since altruism is generally a hand-off type of social judgment, assessment of charity value is never analyzed. It is never judged whether or not a charity event is successful or not, because only the intention is considered. This allows giant government schools like Lakota to use victims of Spina Bifida to actually gain public relations favor ahead of tax increase requests without being accused of using thousands of Lakota students and employees to illegally support school levy endeavors by hiding the intention behind a detrimental illness.
This is the danger of a government school being stuck into the center of a community and forcing property owners to contribute their money to such institutions under force. The progressive philosophy shown in the video, especially at the 8:30 mark is one that I do not support, yet I must support it because I own property near the school. And I also don’t agree with supporting an institution that exploits those who are less fortunate with the disguised need to further raise taxes. Public schools need to behave under competitive influence so that tax payers are given a choice of what kind of ideas they support, or don’t support, instead of being forced to provide thousands of private dollars in taxes to a progressive organization that thinks singing, dancing, and getting on Ellen’s television show is more important than the fundamentals of education, and living within a community established budget.
It may be considered by many to be “mean spirited” to point out such obvious schemes. But if someone really wants to help Spina Bifida, they need to put their money where their mouth is and help those who need it without seeking celebrity on television. In the case of this video, it is just a grim reminder that public education institutions see themselves as molds for a community, and they are driven by government parameters, so it is troubling to see such large conglomerations of collective effort believing that they are doing good, when the act is only an illusion. These are not the kind of messages that children should grow up believing. Even though the participants at the 8:30 mark in the video behave in such a flimsy way as part of their social act, the act itself is but one more reminder that the product produced in public schools are one of the many factors that are eroding away the ethical foundation of our present society with beliefs that are caused not for concern over Spina Bifida, but to become celebrities on Ellen with a production so big, and expensive, that nobody would dare question it.
I saw Iron Man 3 last weekend and wanted to immediately provide a review of some kind because it was a very good film full of large concepts. The value in these comic book based stories is that they do not take themselves too serious as intellectual advancement devices. But like so many plot lines to video games these days, the writing, and concepts behind the plot are quite advanced allowing viewers to define abstract concepts in mythological dialogue that the human brain understands as a truth obtained no other way. When it is wondered why the Marvel films are doing such magnificent business it is not because of the great performances of Robert Downey Jr., or any of the primary actors, but because the bizarre plot lines have within them a truth that unifies all the fragmented evidence society is exposed to and presents the information in a way that makes sense.
But before going too far down the rabbit hole, let’s get the typical stuff out-of-the-way. Is Robert Downey Jr., worth the $50 million dollars he is getting to play Iron Man in these films? I’d say no. If it were me making the decision at Marvel Comics and Disney on how to pay Downey for Avengers 2, I would write Downey out of the story and let him sit it out for a film or two so that his agent does not have the contract leverage to continue driving up the labor costs. By paying Downey so much money, which I don’t think even he thinks he’s worth, it sets a dangerous standard that the other Avenger actors will expect in equality under the ridiculous standards of collective bargaining, and could wreck the magic of these films in the future. If Iron Man or an Iron Man type of character needs to appear in The Avengers 2 let it just be the suit with another actor doing the voice of Downey, or make it the Iron Patriot instead of Iron Man. Let Avengers 2 make a lot of money without Downey to take away the leverage and keep the budget under control—otherwise the Marvel films as a financial formula could be wrecked as the parasites of the entertainment industry will seek to concentrate on collective bargaining as a way to increase their own looting percentages. Downey’s performance as Tony Stark in the Iron Man films is brilliant, and I laughed out loud several times during Iron Man 3, but that performance is not worth $50 million dollars or more. I’d center the next Avenger film around another character and if the actors don’t come down in their prices, make it more about The Hulk as a CGI character to cut down the screen time of the other actors and call the bluff of the agents trying to increase payroll for the actors to over $200 million alone—as everyone now expects a Marvel Comics movie to pull in at least $1 billion at the box office. With that said I don’t think any other actor could have played Tony Stark as brilliantly as Downey did. The range of emotions Robert Downey Jr., performed in Iron Man 3 ranged from dealing with genius scientists, mechanical robots, romantic interactions, maniacal terrorists, to the innocence of young children—all done with comedic overtones. It was unique, and fun to watch. In spite of the money demands Iron Man 3 will place as a danger to contract negotiations between Downey and future films, I think all the parties will work out the situation in time and snap back into reality allowing Iron Man to return to the big screen played by Robert Downey Jr. I think Downey understands the situation and will do the right thing in the end giving kids more of his Iron Man.
What set this Iron Man 3 film apart from other movies of the same basic design was the way they portrayed the villain, The Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley. As I read the reviews of Iron Man 3 and saw that so many young people were having a hard time accepting who and what the Mandarin was as a bad guy, I had to laugh a bit. Many people seeing Iron Man 3 had hoped that The Mandarin would be a villain of epic James Bond capacity, a treacherous villain worthy of being far superior to Tony Stark in order to drive tension into the film’s narrative. Instead The Mandarin was simply an actor hired to play a terrorist by the real terrorists who were working behind the scenes of a well-intended campaign to end human misery by re-growing lost limbs from victims of unfortunate tragedies. The real villains in Iron Man 3 were brilliant wide-eyed scientists and politicians who wanted to help the world, not destroy it. They simply desired to “nudge” society into compliance with their vision. This conspiracy went all the way into the President of the United States own administration and was handled very well by the writing and direction of Shane Black. Considering that Iron Man 3 was being filmed and finished in post-production after the events of the real life Aurora shooting, Sandy Hook, and Benghazi, the plot of Iron Man 3 was incredibly insightful. The difficulty with the various conspiracy theories involved in all those real life tragedies is to assemble them logically with the information that can be known. Figuring out what happened is not easy as it’s like trying to assemble a puzzle where someone has stolen most of the pieces and then tried to figure out what the picture on the puzzle was without most of it being put together.
Most people know or feel that the government as a self-preserving entity will knowingly derail information from the public which leads to all the wild speculations generated about the real intentions of a terrorist act. Even to this very day, conspiracy theorists are ridiculed by the government and their public relations machines for even asking good questions about what really happened in the 9/11 tragedy calling them “truthers.” This leaves people afraid to openly state their opinions, which is the design of the derogatory designation forcing society to relegate their opinions to themselves. Yet fantasy films like Iron Man tackle those conspiracies head on with creativity and attempt to assemble the missing puzzle pieces with some form of logic, and this is why films like Iron Man, and the Batman films are doing such ROBUST box office business. There is a truth in Iron Man that has more meaning for society than 24 hours of watching Fox News.
I watched an interesting interview from Bill O’Reilly a few days ago where he was confused by the enormous business that Iron Man was producing in sheer box office dollars. O’Reilly like all the other news makers of the day wants to believe that Iron Man 3 is good just because of the great performance of Robert Downey Jr. But it’s not. Iron Man 3 is about terrorism and radical extremists, something we all deal with everywhere in the world. Yet the way the terrorism angle was dealt with in Iron Man 3 was likely much more truthful than the typical plotline of any other blockbuster film. We all expected The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 to be a ruthless terrorist like Osama bin Laden, or Saddam Hussein—a mastermind, and ruthless despot. But when Tony Stark discovered who the real Mandarin truly was, he found that he was just an actor who has been playing the part of a terrorist in exchange for drugs—as he’s a recovering addict. That is the reason behind the success of Iron Man 3 and films like it.
Even in the wild over-the-top plot lines of The Avengers, the idea of aliens attacking earth through a wormhole has more plausibility than many of the plot lines that our society is fed by statist oriented governments who seek to placate the public with disinformation and manipulation in order to advance their version of solutions against the will of the people they represent. There is more truth in simple comic book stories than in any other plausible explanation, and this is not just a diabolical tragedy, but a stunning revelation. The magic of a story like Iron Man 3 is that it puts the plausible concept in the mind of the viewer so that rational emphasis can be added to actual reality. In the case of Iron Man 3, the storyline is unlikely, but the scenario of how the terrorists were able to get into the president’s own administration and manipulate vast sums of people with the fear “they” created with the fictional character in The Mandarin has roots in reality. The intention of the Mandarin was to get the eyes of the American public to look toward China or the Mideast for the source of the terrorist threat, not to Miami, Florida in a crack house filled with whores and a burnt out actor who had been hired by the terrorists to play a terrorist.
Iron Man 3 reminded me of a typical action film from the 80s in most other regards. I did not think the special effects where outrageously great. I thought the ending was telegraphed and was average. Coming out of the theater I asked Doc Thompson what he thought of the film from The Blaze and he said that he liked it, but that it was an average film—technically. He gave it 6 out of 10, which I tend to agree with. I would give it a bit higher score based on Downey’s performance alone. But the film is much better if the context is considered by the explanation of many conspiracies. It is in this explanation, or plausible one, that the Marvel movies thrive so boldly. There is truth in these fictions that is more relevant than the truth offered in real life that often turns out to be fiction. This is why Iron Man 3 has made nearly $1 billion dollars in just two weeks at theaters. As wonderful as Downey’s performance was, it is the plots that drive the heroics, and that rests in the hands of Stan Lee from Marvel Comics.
I read a lot of heavy material, and I often balance out all that weighty stuff with comic books to ease my mind and relax. In fact, for my 25th wedding anniversary my wife bought me a comic book. I like to read them, which only takes about 10 minutes, but I often enjoy just looking at the pictures which contain the visions of the authors and effort of their imaginations. They are often simplified outlooks at reality but occasionally, there are very sophisticated concepts that are approached in comics which can’t be explored in the deepest work of Carl Jung. I read recently a very good editorial from Dave Marshall at Dark Horse Comics in January of 2013 titled “Everyone Needs Stories.” Below are the first couple of paragraphs that remind me of why Iron Man 3 is so successful.
Too often stories can be taken for granted, bundled away as frivolous entertainment, but it only takes glancing at a newspaper, opening a book (nonfiction included), or having a conversation to see that storytelling is an inexorable part of communication, which in turn is an inexorable part of the human experience.
Stories are everywhere, yet our thirst for them remains unquenchable. We even consume products masquerading as stories in nearly immeasurable quantities if they are convenient, as our need is so present and demanding. This fact informs my work every day. I strive to contribute to books that give people the stories they need, with truthful characters who navigate authentic emotional experience in an intricately realized world, as opposed to merely growing the heaps of false stories, with motorized characters clicking through their roles in a mechanical plot, designed to lure people in and produce a predictable result (usually additional purchases).
When a story gives people what they need it becomes a part of them, integrating into their attitudes and ideas, and expressing itself in infinite ways, some of which the comics community knows well.
Dave Marshall, editor of Dark Horse Comics
Marshall is right, everyone does need stories, but not the kind that are produced in public relation firms and pumped out to keep the society at large in the dark as to the real truth of a matter. They need stories that can take the motivations of well-intended individuals and make them into treacherous monsters which is what Iron Man 3 is all about. It’s a fantastic story that has more relevance than the nightly news, and more truth than a White House press conference. As whimsical as Iron Man 3 is, it is more honest than the speech of a typical politician or government spokesperson, and that is why business is so good with comic book movies. They are not successful because kids and adults alike are escaping reality and reliving their childhoods through the characters actors like Robert Downey Jr., create, but because the stories are truthful, and honest about the human condition in a way that no other endeavor attempts to tackle. In that regard, Iron Man 3 is a 10 out of 10 and a movie that should be seen by everyone in every corner of the globe. And yet again, Stan Lee deserves a tip of the hat to his tenacious creations and ruthless honesty.
I am not used to as of yet reading through arguments where people I don’t know quote things I have said to validate their opinions. Yet I ran across just such a quote by accident seen below from my 2004 Symposium of Justice novel.
“Walk in the woods where there is no path. Live in conflict with those that are superior to you. You will learn, hopefully not too late, that life’s greatest fruits come to those who live a little dangerously. You’ll also find that if you make batters work for a hit, they’ll respect you more as a pitcher. If they get a home run off of you, it will mean more if they earn it.”
While staying with me during this visit, he continued to compare my work to Nietzsche extensively, which I thought was nice, but not relevant. I made only a passing reference to Nietzsche in The Symposium, but he had taken the dialogue to a whole animated level, which I thought was out of some inner need to attached meaning in his life to important things collected by his mind for the benefit of inner mythology. So I dismissed his appreciation for my work and instead wanted to focus on the shooting schedule for his film and how we would go about it. In my mind I had moved on from the intellectual concepts and onto something productive. That probably has something to do with why he was so shattered when I told him he was a terrible film director when he missed our film festival deadline with footage that was too dark, poorly cut together and virtually worthless. For me, it was just business. I didn’t think at the time that the entire reason he wanted to make the film in the first place was that The Symposium had an effect on him, and he wanted to live out a fantasy of becoming a film director with material he felt passionate about.
At another event that I was at a few years later, I had a fan who wanted my autograph and a picture because The Symposium of Justice had impacted him in such a way. As a person who never seeks autographs or pictures next to celebrities I wasn’t sure what all the hoopla was about. I had recently just returned from Los Angeles where I did the thing with Facinelli and noticed that everyone was taking pictures next to everyone else. So I stood next to whomever wanted to stand next to me for a picture. I didn’t understand it, but I played along. The good thing about Peter is that he made a point to drive me back to my hotel each day after the film shoot, so when we were in the car away from the set I asked him if he got tired of all the celebrity stuff. He laughed and said that he did sometimes, but that it was a necessary part of the job. So when I was at an event promoting the completion of my Symposium project called The Overman I signed autographs and posed for pictures playing along still not sure why anybody would want to do such a thing. An article about that event can be seen from a Yahoo News piece shown below.
JAMESTOWN, OH – Award-winning screen writer, author and stunt performer Rich Hoffman brought his most recent independent film project to Greene County, Ohio in March. Hoffman, originally from Middletown, Ohio, teamed up with Gery L. Deer, managing director of GLD Enterprises & Productions of Jamestown, to make a film that combines live action with the latest in high-definition computer generated imaging.
It took more than 12 hours to film the live action for the five-minute film short. Post production will take more than a month to complete and the film is scheduled to be released following its premier at the 2009 Indie Gathering independent film festival, August 14 in Cleveland.
The script is based on characters in situations introduced in Hoffman’s dark, futuristic, action novel, “The Symposium of Justice,” released in 2004. The project is professed to be on the cutting edge of digital video effects.
“Rich had an ambitious production schedule and a deadline that required us to do a great deal of work in a very short time,” said Deer, who is best known locally for his work as an independent journalist and entertainer but is also an experienced stunt performer and producer. “We had everything he needed to meet the production goals and, I have to say, short of a Star Wars movie, I have never seen so much green screen material in one place before; it was quite impressive.” All of the sets and background effects will be added in post production.
Green screen is a common term referring to the Chroma key technique used for mixing two images or frames together on film. In Chroma key, a color from one image is removed or made transparent revealing another image behind. This technique is also referred to as color keying, color-separation overlay, and bluescreen.
This process has been used for many years on weather broadcasts, where the presenter appears to be standing in front of a map, but in the studio it is actually a large blue or green background. In film and television production, the process is used to enhance visual effects or reduce costs on set construction.
Actors working on a green screen set perform among green-colored set pieces and backdrops. In post production, specialized computer software recognizes the green tinted background and makes it transparent and replacing it with digital effects. The actors, set pieces and props then appear to be in whatever setting required. Recent films like “300,” “Sin City,” and “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,” have used this process to create both characters and settings.
Everyone is donating their time to this independent film project, as so many Hollywood-based productions are doing today. GLD Enterprises & Productions provided the production facility and set crew and stunt performers for filming the live action as well as various engineering and technical services.
The hope is that the final product will draw new business for the cast and crew in this sluggish economy where production capital is hard to raise. “This will be a great way to show what our group can do,” said Hoffman. Fortunately, Deer and Hoffman came into the project with an impressive track record.
In 2006, Hoffman’s script, “The Lost Cannibals of Cahokia,” won the highest award possible for a feature screenplay in the horror category at the Indie Gathering international film festival in Cleveland. Since then Hoffman has continued to develop other projects and recently returned from Hollywood where he worked on another independent production as a stuntman and fire whip specialist. A fire whip is a Kevlar bullwhip which is soaked in a specially formulated combustible fuel used for the visual effect.
Deer’s resume includes multiple performance and contest awards and work as a property consultant and designer for the 2003 Universal Studios movie, “The Rundown,” as well as roles in several independent film productions. A writer, whip stunt coach, publicist, and voiceover artist, Deer has been featured on television programs like NBC’s America’s Got Talent and The Bonnie Hunt Show. Deer is also a registered Writers Guild of America screenwriter.
The work was done on a closed set and the details of the script have been kept secret pending the outcome of the film competitions No title has been released at this time. To see photos or get more information about the project go online to www.gldentertainment.com and click on Hoffman Collaboration.
I had to finish what that director had started which is what The Overman was all about. In reality it turned out to be a sample of firewhip work against greenscreen to demonstrate how those two technologies could be incorporated. We had to shoot all those scenes outside because of the fire and the intense light from the fire making keying in colors during post-production a nightmare, but it worked well and was an award-winning effort.
The purpose of all this is that I wrote The Symposium of Justice from the heart, and many people came to enjoy it, but I moved on to the next phases of my life without looking back much or taking much time to consider what impact that novel had on people. It does make me feel good that so many people enjoyed it, and wanted to work with me just to be near the person who wrote the words.
Now it is equally strange for me to see quotes of my novel appearing here and there as validation to philosophical positions which is a strange sensation—and I think I like it. I enjoy it in the same way that The Symposium gave me access to people and places that I wouldn’t have enjoyed any other way but to put a story out to the world which touched lives in ways that you always hope for.
I might have been too hard on that film professor—(wanna’ be film director). He wanted to make the film because he wanted to bring The Symposium to life even though he lacked the emotional tools to do so. As more and more people go to the trouble of using aspects of my work to support their growing understanding, I will make an effort to be more facilitating of their expanding horizons. And if that involves a keepsake, or memento such as an autograph, I will make the effort not to appear so stand-offish.
This isn’t the first time I’ve said such things about Obama. I suggested impeaching the President after the controversial appointment of cabinet members during 2012. CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW. So this isn’t anything new for me. But if my congressman John Boehner had acted when I suggested it then the lost lives in Benghazi might have been saved, the economy would be recovering, and the IRS scandal which was happening to members of his district due to their involvement in Tea Party groups would not have occurred. Also members of the media would not have been subjected to harassment by the Obama Justice Department under Eric Holder and countless other tyrannies that could have been averted.
Instead, Boehner calculated that my urging to impeach Obama was radical, and represented a far right-wing view-point that he dismissed. After all, his concerns were to play golf with Obama and work toward “peaceful solutions” through diplomacy. Boehner also enjoys appeasing the local socialites who know little about politics, or business finance, yet inject themselves into every discussion where money flows attempting to bring altruistic judgment through joined wine glasses and catered meals. Such socialites support Obama’s brand of socialism, especially in public education institutions even though they claim to be conservative Republicans joined at the hip to Governor Kasich. Boehner and Kasich listen to the socialist whims of such people so that the purse strings stay open for future campaigns. After all, those socialites are “rich” and their opinions carry much weight even though the quality of their minds are detriments to society, and for politicians seeking re-election the former is more important than the later. It is because of such social pressures, and lack of determination that people like Ariel Castro can operate in the open, and why con artists like Barack Obama can get away with audacious lies behind a socialist agenda to fulfill goals that exist outside of fathomable reality. The blood is on the hands of those who didn’t act in the beginning hoping that elections would solve the problem peacefully, and far less grotesquely.
But elections didn’t solve the problem, and the “socialites” planned desire to maintain community integrity with wine glasses and fund-raising dinners allowed evil to grow, not abate, and now all those involved with the great indecision are guilty of not just assisting in treachery against The United States, but in assisting evil through inaction. The crimes committed by the Obama administration all during 2012 and thus far in 2013 are on the hands of those who failed to recognize evil hidden behind a smiling face and great charisma that only a demon from the temples of hell could generate.
It is a fair characterization to level such claims at Barack Obama because it was his administration that allowed for a terrible evil to be committed with full knowledge that it was a lie. Obama and his White House staff blamed the Benghazi deaths on Mark Basseley Youssef, AKA Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, AKA Sam Bacile the director of the terrible film “Innocence of Muslims” which about 10 people saw in a southern California movie theater. Other than that one public showing only a 15 minute video clip existed on YouTube at the time of the Benghazi attack. Bacile wrote the film in prison and shot it within two months of being release with no money, no real actors, and obviously an angry rant that was shaped during his stint in prison. Nobody saw it, and nobody cared—but the film was a symbol of free speech, which President Obama is supposed to protect. Instead, Obama allowed Bacile to take the fall for an alleged gun running operation in Libya and the apparently intentional death of those involved to cover the tracks. The Obama administration immediately hoped to hide their guilt behind the free speech efforts of a nothing film shown to a vacant audience counting on the American people to believe that the violence had been ignited by a 15-minute YouTube clip. See the rest of the story at the below link.
Obama knowingly lied to the American people and with the same type of public sincerity shown by the embodiment of evil in Ariel Castro who pretended sincere emotions during a presidential election that covered the gross abuse of his employees intentionally disgracing The White House. They did what they have done on purpose, and they trusted that the press and American people would not advance the issue beyond their deceitful manipulations. The worst of all these recent revelations are that the Obama administration designated a sacrificial victim in Sam Bacile who was only guilty of being a bad filmmaker, and tossed him into jail to cover the crimes of murder that was either intentionally committed by the Obama administration, or was caused by sheer incompetence. Either way, Americans died in Benghazi due to poor leadership by the Obama administration. Then the Obama White House tried to blame the violence on a silly YouTube video hoping that the scandal would not be pressed by the public any further. They insulted the deceased with their hope to get away with the crime.
The reasons for the impeachment of Barack Obama extend well into a long list of Constitutional violations and are voluminous beyond comprehension. But the worst is the intention of the administration to pick a sacrificial victim in Bacile and throw him upon an alter stepping all over his rights as an individual to preserve the collective aims of the Obama White House. If The White House will do such a thing with one man, they will do it with any collection of people, any business, or any philosophic idea, and that makes Obama and his employees dangerous to the American experience, and detriments to all free people who want a fair chance at life success and social opportunity. That is why Obama should be removed from office so to set the parameters for all future presidents of what is acceptable and what is not. A failure to act on Obama and his crimes will establish for the entire future an understanding that it is alright for Presidents to behave in such a destructive fashion against the American people. More destruction will follow of the American way of life if Obama is not impeached, and this is a reality that cannot be hidden from. It will take courage, courage from the press, courage from the politicians that must embark on the tragic journey, and courage from the American people to look evil in the eye and act against it, instead of being seduced. It must happen because America does not want to look at itself decades from now and wonder what happened in the same way that we are asking how Ariel Castro was able to chain three stolen girls in his basement in plain site of many people who failed to act in a way to save the victims. To me, Ariel Castro and Barack Obama are one in the same. Their only real difference is that Castro tortured and molested three innocent girls over a long period of time. Obama is doing the same figuratively with the entire world, and he needs to be stopped boldly and with great conviction. One is literal, one is metaphorical, but they are both the sheer face of evil in all its destructive qualities, and bottomless malevolence.
It has taken me a few days to assemble my thoughts about Ariel Castro, the man who took at least three young girls hostage in his home and forced them to perform as sex slaves over a ten-year period, never letting the girls see the light of day. I wish I could say that such information was shocking, but it’s not. The case represents a complete failure in our society—a failure to recognize evil and to act on it. Castro was very arrogant about his behavior, even maintaining emotional connections to the families of the girls he had locked in his basement—so to throw off the trail of his guilt. The case has unsettled Americans because they fear that it could happen to anybody, anywhere, if such people could do such a horrible act right out in the open of a busy neighborhood. The question of how Ariel Castro could have held the girls prisoner for such a long time as other people walked by down the side-walk, visited his home, and observed him from across the street and not detect the evil happening in his basement leaves Americans feeling insecure—and looking to government to assist them. Everybody wants to know that somebody can detect such evil and prevent it from happening.
When I wrote my novel TheSymposium of Justice I wrote the opening chapter based on a personal experience I had which involved the FBI and local police who were unable to find a serial rapist that was roaming my neighborhood, frightening my wife and little girls. The villain of that chapter was a character who is ironically very much like the profile of Ariel Castro in real life. The scene takes place in the chapter titled “Scarface the Rapist.” It was based on many late nights spent by myself looking for the rapist on my neighborhood streets because the FBI was failing to discover the predator. The similarities to Castro and Scarface the Rapist in my novel was not a prophetic act on my part, but a profile tendency that such villain’s exhibit. I realized in my interviews with the police at the time, and the FBI that our society had lost the ability to detect evil and act on preventing it, because most human beings had fallen victim to inaction by allowing their personal educations to introduce to their minds anti-concepts which stripped away their ability to ascertain value to people or situations.
I wrote The Symposium of Justice as a reaction to this realization. I wanted to re-teach those willing to learn how to recognize evil and to act on their realizations. I wanted to present to reader’s minds various scenarios that examine evil from various vantage points so that they could relate the experience to their lives and hopefully keep people like Ariel Castro in the cracks of society away from innocent children.
There is no amount of surveillance available to the CIA, FBI, the DEA, the police, or any other protective organization if the people listening have lost their ability to determine the nature of evil and to act against it. The short answer to the Ariel Castro types in the world, who wish to assert their dominance over others with force, coercion, and fear, is that the authorities cannot save anybody. They can only scoop up the bodies later after the crimes have happen. It took Amanda Berry to finally escape after 10 years of captivity having to endure unimaginable acts to heroically save herself by playing her hand till just the right moment. If she hadn’t kept her mind sane, the rest of the girls would still be chained in the basement for perhaps another 10 years and the police, along with every federal agency would be powerless to do anything about it. They are powerless not because they don’t have the tools to detect human bodies present with heat detection technology, listening devices, and other advanced wall penetrating information gathering equipment—but because they cannot detect the behavior patterns of evil.
The human race has lost its ability to look people like Ariel Castro in the eye and determine that they are up to no good. The human race has lost its ability to assert judgment of right and wrong. It has lost the ability to act on behalf of goodness.
I realized this during my many interviews with federal agents and the police years ago. So I took matters into my own hands. I wrote The Symposium of Justice to help others re-learn how evil conducts its sinister symphonies. I write this blog every day in the same spirit, I want to teach other human beings how to determine right from wrong and to educate them on the skills they have had bred out of them through public education and other statist institutions. The best way to prevent the Ariel Casto types from ruining the lives of other people is to detect them as they walk down your sidewalk, or to catch them in the middle of the night outside a neighbor’s window, and to deal with them in ways that they police are powerless to engage in—due to a court system which has allowed evil to thrive by removing value assessment from society.
The other aspect to this problem of evil and its social growth is the tragic result of modern society to consciously produce “beta men.” Public schools, statist governments, religions, and the media have actively sought to destroy the traditional sense of strong, Alpha males in a misguided attempt to bring perceived equality to women. They have sought to accomplish this by bringing down the mental standards of women toward men, and making men strive to be physically less astute and more akin to females. This has caused all types of problems primarily where men no longer feel they should protect females in society. Men should no longer open the door for women, pay their way during mating customs, or stand on behalf of a woman’s honor, is the modern message advocated most profoundly. Progressive social engineers have removed “value” from the social vocabulary so to make possible equality between the sexes and this has left both males and females prone to being preyed upon by evil.
We currently live in a society where a man would not consider taking a bullet from a gun for a woman he does not know. He will not fight for the honor of a female that is being pillaged by a gang of thugs. The man has been taught to be a “beta” since he views males and females the same in value so the first impulse is indecision instead of valor during an emergency confrontation or possible maneuver by evil to harm an innocent women. This has wrecked sexual customs in human beings forcing their inner feelings underground through pornography to manifest. For women, they deeply yearn for a dominate man in their sexual relationships and are more prone than ever to promiscuous relationships outside the family unit to satisfy their yearnings. For men, unable to satisfy their wives turn to pornography and innocent young girls who are too immature to judge their adult inadequacies. This is the fuel behind the sex trade industry where many men save up their pennies to purchase “escorts” during business trips at their hotel rooms, or place dollar bills in the panties of 19-year-old girls at Vegas gentlemen clubs. Some even go so far to fly oversees to participate in the type of youthful sex that they cannot get in the United States openly.
This comes back around to the Ariel Castro case. Castro, too poor to fly to Malaysia, Cambodia, or China for illegal sex with 12 to 16 year-old-girls simply took them from his neighborhood. He scouted them out as a school bus driver for a public school, and simply took the girls for his use. His situation is no different from the other evils that drive sex trade throughout the world. The only difference between Castro and “Millions” of other confused men is that Castro was too poor to hide his crimes from the eyes of society. He could only afford to take the crimes to his basement, but the desire is the same as the middle-aged businessman who pretends to go to Cambodia for a “charity” event only to use such an endeavor to commit vicious evil against an innocent child sold into the sex trade by parents crushed under government statism. The evil of Castro was not seen by friends, family and neighbors because in their minds they are guilty of the same crimes. They may not act on their thoughts, but they think about them, which prevents them from casting opinions at the strange behavior of Castro as he entered his home with more food than he needed, placed trash in front of his home that was “excessive,” and had strangely boarded up windows. Nobody thought to push Castro when they were associating with him about his strange habits because they had the same irregular behavior patterns allowing evil to hide itself in plain view.
I know when I wrote Symposium and started the opening chapter with a rape attempt driven by a child molesting sex addict that I was insulting most of the world population. I didn’t expect the novel to jump to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list because it stands against most of the current values of modern society. But for that, I am proud. I enjoy profoundly fighting evil. I have done it all my life and I will do it as long as I walk the earth. I have picked fights with evil for many years and had many adventures because of it. If I had it my way I would string evil up into the trees with my whips and beat them all like a piñata. I don’t care if its one evil doer or 1 million, it does not matter. But in the modern world, I would be prosecuted because I have value where evil does not. Evil and statist government are essentially one in the same so the government will defend evil and prosecute me because evil has nothing to give—they can only take—just like government. So I take my frustrations out on evil in my novels—particularly my Symposium, which my kids love most. They know me, and some of the antics I have been involved in, so they understand the motives of Fletcher Finnegan from that very defined story of good against evil.
I feel bad for Amanda Berry who escaped the wrath finally after 10 years from Ariel Castro. But I feel worse for the “millions” and millions of other girls throughout the world who are currently under the same tragic circumstances. Evil has their lives in its hands and for such young minds they realize that there is nowhere on earth that they are safe, so they surrender their integrity to the impositions of tyranny in the form of forced sex. The line of problems that lead to such circumstances is long, and has its roots in statist governments and lack of individual will. This problem will not go away with the prosecution of Ariel Castro. It will simply allow society to divert their attention away from the real problem of evil that is present in their own lives, inconveniently. For those who realize such things, I offer them The Symposium. The way to beat evil is to combat it directly and to spit in its eye and prevent it from hiding in the shadows of guilt, apathy, and lazy neglect. Evil must be defeated if the human race hopes to continue, and no government on earth can achieve such a feat no matter how much money they spend on the attempt. The combat of evil comes from the ability to first determine right from wrong and assess value. Then there must be a will to confront it. Without such things, evil will continue to hide right in front of our faces, and more Amanda Berrys’ will remain chained in basements, tied to bed posts, and taken from loving families and sold into modern slavery until such a will is present in the human race. It all starts with recognizing evil for evil, and having the courage to confront it without fear.
This is how desensitized we have all become. It’s an accepted practice…………….and it is evil.
As Justin communicated with me his thoughts on the IRS revelation on May 10, 2013 he had just wrapped up a very busy day with the media finishing up with ABC World News Tonight, among many other television news programs. He was far from “satisfied” and I couldn’t blame him. Here is the prior article about the issue with the IRS and Justin.
* Reaching out to liberty groups and tea party groups is political in nature – an affront to liberty. I accept the organization (IRS) has a policy against it, but would like to know what actions are taken to assure this does not recur.
* Asking a group about a tax status, unless politically motivated, is ok. What leadership does in their free time is of no relevance to what the organization does. Asking about an individual, particularly an unrelated individual, is troubling. What purpose could it serve? Why was that individual, me in this case, not contacted or informed of outreach?
* As of writing I have not received anything in writing from the IRS besides the initial denial. It would be nice to receive an apology and to receive assurance it will not happen again and that responses, if any, will not be held against me the individual.
The IRS had attacked the Liberty Township Tea Party out of blind speculation that they were involved with Justin Binik-Thomas as he was a founding member of the Cincinnati Tea Party and the assumption was that the Liberty Township group had a way of getting to Thomas. So Liberty Township was maliciously selected for “enforcement.” This essentially meant that the leadership at Liberty Township had to jump through any hoops the IRS decided like mere animals doing tricks for their livelihoods. One of the targets of this IRS inquiry were videos I made featuring Sheriff Jones discussing immigration reform and another I put together featuring the current congressional violations against the 10th Amendment.
I felt bad that my videos were under scrutiny and that some of my antics had gotten other people in trouble with the IRS. At one point in the early winter of 2013 I told some of that leadership just to blame the videos on me, that I was the sole owner of their content, and that I’d deal with the agents on my own. The Liberty Township group did a stand-up job of dealing with the IRS and took care of the situation, which was much more gracious than I was willing to provide, which probably saved a lot more headache. I provided the information the IRS was looking for, and once all those leads went nowhere, the IRS backtracked.
The entire witch hunt started as a direct assault on Justin, and the IRS was simply using mass peer pressure to force Thomas to comply, or back off his Tea Party actions. The IRS was essentially harassing the Liberty Township Tea Party as a way to get at the nerves of Justin Binik-Thomas, and that is not just wrong, it was criminal. So the apology from the IRS is nice, but way too late. It also hints at something else that is amiss.
I am very suspicious of government. I think of even the best of their representatives as habitual liars and con artists. I wouldn’t trust them to walk a dog on an empty leash. So their timing on this apology is actually alarming. The first thought that came to my mind is why are they doing it? And, why now?
Using pure deduction, based on the behavior of government in the past, the same government that lied under oath many times in the past declaring that the IRS did not do the things they just admitted to doing, I would say that the IRS as a member of the federal government is employing the old “bend but don’t break” defensive football strategy. The government knows that they are guilty over the Benghazi situation and are caught in a serious lie. They know that the Tea Party is still full of members that are very active and highly charged even after the re-election of Barack Obama. The government knows that there is an active campaign to remove Republican Governor Kasich from office in the next primaries for turning against the Tea Party, so they fear what might happen to them if the Tea Party gets even more detail out of the Benghazi hearings, which have been carried on Fox News, and extensively by The Blaze Network. The Blaze is a huge supporter of the Tea Party movement and it is getting bigger by the day. The IRS of course knows all this since they have the ability to pry into all our lives at will in the name of “revenue” for the always hungry government. During the Benghazi hearings The Blaze website had over 15 million unique visitors, which is a lot of Americans looking for the truth. So I contend that the IRS is taking a calculated move in relation to the rest of the government and yielding a little to the Tea Party in hopes of taking the edge off the really bad stuff coming out of the modern-day Watergate—which is Benghazi.
This is the trouble with a “collective” organization who thinks more like an ant colony protecting the “queen” than a society of free individuals. The IRS understands what their brothers and sisters are going through in Washington D.C. regarding Benghazi, and they are hoping to take the edge off the story with a nice little monumental revelation that seems so scandalous that it sucks the life out of the Benghazi story. But so what—what is anybody going to do to the IRS? So what if the IRS breaks the law and pisses off the Tea Party, what do they care if they make anybody angry? They revealed they lied in testimony, and that they actually target individuals whom they politically disagree with. So their admission means nothing, it gets played on the news and it makes many Tea Party members believe—falsely—that “the government” is coming around, that they are trying to be good, and honest for a change wishing to redeem themselves for sins of the past—which is far from the truth.
Experience tells me that the behavior of the IRS indicates a bigger fish to fry just outside of perception, and the attempt to throw the world off the scent is the real strategy of this sudden revelation by the IRS. So it would be my advice to those who read here frequently to not take your foot off the throats of those who seek to rule over you. Instead, push down and do not become distracted with this petty admission. I know Justin doesn’t feel happy about spending the last two years targeted personally by the IRS just because he existed. I know the Liberty Township Tea Party would like to have back the dozen or so 2 hour meetings they had to deal with just IRS compliance measures. And as for my time, where do I get back my Saturday that I wasted making DVD copies of my published videos so some pin head at the IRS can have hard copies of evidence gathered from the Liberty Township Tea Party? The answer is that I don’t, the IRS stole my time for no reason, and they don’t care one bit about it. Their apology is not one of sincerity, but of further cover-up of the many sins coming out of Washington D.C. One of my Saturday’s is more valuable and productive than the entire IRS building full of people over any given year. Every minute of my life creates jobs, hopes, and fulfills dreams for others, so wasted time on the IRS takes those things away from others which are why they are such a bad organization whose only primary role is wealth-redistribution.
The shocking revelation by the IRS is not out of goodness, but to cover up further deceit. For them to show humility toward Justin Binik-Thomas who was the real target behind the Cincinnati IRS probes is in the hope that the Tea Party becomes too compassionate to press on with the much more destructive injustices that are hidden just beyond sight. The General Petraeus affair was made of the same type of distractions. The tactical General was planning to retire anyway, so why not throw a juicy story to the hungry wolves hunting a guilty government in order to throw them off the trail? But the Tea Party didn’t take the bait and run back to their caves to eat the meat as hoped. Instead they sniffed and determined that the target was insignificant—and pressed on toward the real villain. Just the other day Obama declared to students at Ohio State that they “should not listen to these anti-government” groups. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain—was essentially what he meant. Government is feeling the pressure from the Tea Party and the strain is showing. Government knows they are guilty—all of them—of serious crimes, much more so than the situation of targeting Tea Party groups of tax exempt status then lying about it. And it is on those crimes that everyone must remain focused—which is what’s happening.
One of the Liberty Township Tea Party members in that leadership group most affected by the IRS inquiry released a statement which I will now provide on the matter. It’s from Mark Etterling, and articulates the problem very well, and provides insight to the next steps that are to come. Mark’s thoughts reflect my own.
An IRS spokesperson recently issued a verbal apology to the various Tea Party and Patriot groups whom they had specifically targeted for extreme scrutiny over their applications for 501C3 tax exempt status. Even though I can’t speak for our group, which happened to be one of those that was targeted, or any of the other groups for that matter, I can at least issue my own personal response. Your apology is NOT accepted. In fact, I’m willing to go so far in my response as to say that I would personally like to see those responsible not only fired, but also brought up on both criminal as well as civil charges for violating our civil rights via a direct abuse of power.
Exactly one month ago I wrote a commentary stating that I was fed up with all the bogus mea culpa’s. An apology based on an accident is one thing. However, an apology that is derived solely from being caught committing overt actions related to a political agenda is something else entirely. An apology isn’t enough after a school suspends a kid over eating a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun just so that the administrators can push a gun control agenda. Using the IRS to exercise extreme scrutiny against specific political groups is nothing more than an overt attempt to curtail the opposing voices of those groups. Therefore, an apology doesn’t cut it there either.
Those that are currently in power like to scoff at those of us who protest against what we view as tyrannical actions by claiming we are simply being paranoid. However, if you look up the Merriam-Webster definition of Tyranny it’s easy to see that bringing the full power and weight of the IRS to bear on a specific political group for the sole purpose of stifling their oppositional viewpoint fits the very definition of tyranny.
3: a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force
4: an oppressive, harsh, or unjust act : a tyrannical act
I’m not acting out of hypocrisy just because this happens to be an incident that struck home for me. In fact, in the book I wrote two years ago I specifically stated that even though I disagree with almost everything liberals like Chris Matthews or Rachel Maddow ever say, I would still fight for their right to speak no matter how much I disagree with them. The reason is that freedom and censorship cannot coexist. The presence of one will automatically destroy the other. A person cannot profess a love of freedom and yet practice a tolerance of those things that destroy freedom at the same time. Therefore, your choice is to either tolerate the abuse of tyrannical censorship, or be as outraged about this as I am. I would suggest that no matter what your political leanings you should think about this carefully and choose wisely. Otherwise, the next time you might find yourself being on the wrong end of such tactics yourself where the tyrants will have already chosen for you.
The trouble with statist governments that are philosophically built on the premise of socialism is that they attempt to operate without defining who the best among them are. Their goal is to determine how they can pull down—or mooch off of others to establish equality among all human beings. But in American football, teams like the ones that the Glazers build are always on the lookout for the “exceptional” individuals who will elevate them into victories. Since the Buccaneers parted ways with Warren Sapp way back in 2004 due to his expensive price tag but aging performance the Bucs have tried to duplicate the kind of teams they had while Warren Sapp played for them, especially during the years of 1997 to his release in 2004. Sapp was an emotional leader who increased the performance of everyone around him, so he was the key ingredient to the Buccaneers classic shut down defense. Broadcasters, coaches, NFL owners, agents and anybody else in the business of professional football tend to believe in statistics using purely mathematical analysis believing falsely that people like Warren Sapp could be easily replaced by new number one draft picks, but even though the Bucs have been very aggressive in trading out coaches, players, and any dynamic they could find with a wonderful facility at One Buc Place in Tampa which watches virtually every college player in the entire country, they have not found another Warren Sapp. They’ve been looking, but there just hasn’t been one.
High school sports coaches in every school in the country have failed to produce another Warren Sapp. Out of the thousands of potential defensive tackles, another Warren Sapp has not emerged in the NFL. But why? Well, the answer is one that I talk about all the time and with Sapp there is not a better example in professional sports.
Sapp’s mother worked three jobs, yet was always there to wake him up to go to school. She set in his mind a work ethic that made Sapp a monster on the practice field. But while his mom was always working and wasn’t home much to care for him, Sapp played football all the time with his older brothers who did everything they could to restrict their younger sibling. Warren Sapp being a young man with an extremely vicious temper and a yearning to win, never let his older brothers suppress his spirit. He worked hard to become bigger, stronger, and faster than anybody else. And if he found that he came up against those who were bigger, stronger, or faster than he was, then he would beat them with superior will-power.
Sapp went on to become a dominate football player at his high school in a suburb of Orlando then was a dominant player at the University of Miami. He was drafted by the Bucs in 1995 at the start of the Glazer era by Sam Wyche—a man who was nearly as colorful as a coach as Sapp was as a player. Wyche used to be the head coach for the Bengals before Mike Brown took over the team upon his father’s death. Sam Wyche was responsible for the famous, “you don’t live in Cleveland” speech to the entire stadium. Wyche didn’t last long under the statist like Mike Brown, so he became the coach in Tampa back in 1992. Wyche had some success in Tampa, and was responsible for many of the draft picks that built the team who would go on to win the Superbowl a few years later. After five years of not taking the Buccaneers to championship form, the Glazers cut Wyche and hired Tony Dungy. It was under Tony that Sapp found a mentor that was perfect for his personality, and the Buccaneers became arguably the best defense in the NFL for a number of years.
Sapp is one of only six defensive players in NFL history to make the Pro Bowl, be named Defensive Player of the Year, and win a Super Bowl or NFL title. The others are Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White and Sapp’s former teammate, Derrick Brooks. He is now reckoned as the prototype three-technique defensive tackle; ever since his retirement NFL teams scouting defensive tackles have reportedly been looking for a “Baby Sapp.”[6]
He was selected to 7 Pro Bowls, was named a First-Team All-Pro four times and a Second-Team All-Pro twice, while adding a spot on the 1990s and 2000s All-Decade Teams and, most impressively, earning Defensive Player of the Year honors after an amazing 16.5-sack season in 1999. Sapp was a key player for the imposing Buc defenses of the late ’90s and early ’00s, truly the cog that made that defense go.
Sapp played the game of football like a gladiator in a Roman arena. He relished the combat of daily play and always understood that for every admirer, he had many who wanted to take him down, so he never let his guard relax on or off the field. He was often careful to eat food in restaurants in towns where the Buccaneers visited as he was concerned that enemies of his might tamper with his health and he had practice customs before each game that involved skipping through the enemy team’s side of the field to show his dominance over them before a game. Warren Sapp was geared up for conflict at all hours of every day and he relished it. It made him better, stronger and faster, a regiment that had started with his mother who worked hard 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and older brothers who constantly challenged him. Sapp had an extremely colorful career with the Buccaneers and a fighting spirit that other players like Ronde Barber, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch, Mike Alstott, and many others would rally behind to become one of the most animated, and technically proficient sports teams to ever take a field. But it all started with the extreme charisma of an individual in Warren Sapp which led to many controversies.
Mike Sherman confrontation
On November 24, 2002, at Raymond James Stadium, Sapp drew criticism for a cheap shot on the Green Bay Packers‘ Chad Clifton during an interception return by the Buccaneers. Clifton was jogging down field, away from the main action, and was blindsided by Sapp. Clifton suffered a severe pelvic injury on the play.[10] The hit sent Clifton to the hospital. He was hospitalized for almost a week and could not walk unaided for five more weeks. In 2005, the NFL Competition Committee agreed on new guidelines for “unnecessary roughness”, making hits such as that suffered by Clifton illegal.
In an exchange caught by television cameras following the game, Packers’ coach Mike Sherman approached Sapp and said to him, “That was a chicken shit play.”[11] In response, Sapp screamed repeatedly at Sherman: “You’re so tough? Put on a fucking jersey!”[10] Sherman later called Sapp “a lying, shit-eating hound. … If I was 25 years old and didn’t have a kid and a conscience, I would have given him an ass-kicking right there at the 30-yard line.”[10] Sherman later said of Sapp: “The joviality that existed after [the hit] when a guy’s lying on the ground, with numbness in his legs and fingers, I just thought that wasn’t appropriate for any NFL player.”[11]
The skipping incidents
During pre-game warm-ups of a December 23, 2002 Monday Night Football game at Raymond James Stadium, Warren skipped among the Pittsburgh Steelers players during their pre-game warmups. Steelers running back Jerome Bettis shoved Sapp, and this was followed by a heated argument between the two teams. Sapp felt that he was made an example by the NFL by being fined for that first skipping incident. “That’s all this is about,” said Sapp. “In my nine years in this league, no one’s been fined for verbally abusing officials. It’s unprecedented.”[12] The Buccaneers had been earlier ridiculed by Steelers’ Lee Flowers as being “paper champions.” Despite losing to the Steelers in that game, Sapp and the Buccaneers went on to win Super Bowl XXXVII five weeks later.
In 2003, during an October 6 Monday Night Football game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sapp was scolded for skipping through and disrupting the Colts players, who were spread out on the field, stretching during pre-game warmups. There was much anticipation and national interest going into the game, which was the return of former head coach Tony Dungy to Tampa. The Colts wound up erasing a 21-point deficit in the final four minutes, and defeated the Buccaneers 38-35 in overtime, initiating a downslide for the defending champions.
A week later, on October 12, 2003, prior to the game against the Washington Redskins, Sapp was running onto the field when he bumped into an NFL referee. The incident drew a fine of $50,000. Sapp’s response to the fine: “It’s a slave system. Make no mistake about it. Slave master say you can’t do it, don’t do it. They’ll make an example out of you.”[13]
Ejection for unsportsmanlike conduct
On December 23, 2007, Sapp was involved in an altercation with NFL referees near the end of the second quarter of the Raiders’ game at Jacksonville.[14]
The incident began when linesman Jerry Bergman mistakenly assumed that the Raiders wished to decline a Jacksonville 10-yard penalty. Sapp, the defensive captain, began speaking with referee Jerome Boger, indicating that the Raiders instead wished to accept the penalty. The conversation became heated, with Sapp gesturing and swearing. This resulted in an unsportsmanlike conduct call by Boger against Sapp. Sapp and his defensive teammates continued interacting with the officials after the penalty was called, resulting in a second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Sapp and another unsportsmanlike conduct penalty assessed against teammate Derrick Burgess. Finally, the coaches and officiating staff entered the field and began physically separating and removing the arguing players. Boger claimed that during this time Sapp “bumped” him; Sapp denies making physical contact. Regardless, at this point Boger levied a third unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Sapp and ejected him from the game. Sapp did not play in the second half and was eventually fined $75,000 by the NFL; Burgess received a $25,000 fine.[15]
Being the best took its toll on Sapp. He made a lot of mistakes off the field, particularly with women. He had nobody in his life who could prepare him for what society would do to him while being the best. He was playing a capitalist game, but the society at large was hell-bent on socialism leaving them empty husks looking to be filled by his beaming personality. Naturally women threw themselves at him and he accepted causing him and his wife to separate in 2003. The alimony to all the mothers of his children would eventually bankrupt him once his playing days were over in 2008. His hard life and multitude of enemies had caught up with him. As a player who had once had millions of dollars in his pockets, had less than $1000 dollars in his bank account in April of 2012 when he had to finally file for bankruptcy. Warren’s big problem is that he failed to understand that the world would mooch off him to the extent that they had, and he did not put a stop to it with the same aggression he displayed on the football field.
But he wouldn’t be the first, and he won’t be the last to find that the world is filled with personalities who attach themselves to strong individuals for safety, security and just a fragment of charisma. They will take, and take and take until there isn’t anything left of such people—and once they’ve done that—they will kick you to the curb and look for someone else to loot, pillage, and crush. That is the ways of socialism, especially in modern America where a mixed economy allows such things to occur. When people like Warren Sapp who have hearts as big as their tempers and try to do so much for so many people, but fail to recognize that there is no way to ever stop the perils of socialism when the methods of capitalism are removed from their lives, then the game is truly over. And for Warren Sapp, it ended in bankruptcy.
But Sapp is a fighter, and he has gotten right back up again from his hard fall in the post football era of his life. As terrible as the news for him was in 2012 he is now a Hall of Famer during his first year of eligibility and he will now be in the famed Buccaneers Ring of Honor. He is being brought back into the culture of the Glazer Buccaneers to mentor young players into emulating him so that the Bucs can rise once again to the kind of team it was under his previous leadership. I have often said I would rather have a man like Warren Sapp on the sideline even if he was a quadriplegic—just for his mind and passion than a whole army of first-round draft picks. I’d take Warren Sapp for my football team as just a talking head before I’d take a team full of Heisman Trophy winners any day of the week. Warren Sapp is that special of an individual.
So Warren, I will be there with you when you get your Ring of Honor. I will be watching. You are a very special person, especially to my daughter and me. I have thrown televisions out the front window of my house watching you play for the Buccaneers in anger over calls made against your actions. I have jumped so hard in my living room that I have cracked the ceiling punching it after one of your sacks. I have yelled myself hoarse after Buccaneer games that you played. I have rooted for you as an individual spark that ignited a Buccaneer domination of the NFL and it is because of this era that I still hang a banner dedicated to the Buccaneers in the foyer of my home to greet all who enter. My daughter and I have enjoyed your life so far and we look forward to many more years of your entertainment. I watch the NFL commentaries just to see what you have to say because I trust your opinions over those who do not think with the same passion, and determination. You played the game the way I think and for that I will always be grateful.
Football is a game of capitalism. What happened to Warren Sapp is his fault in that he didn’t recognize that socialism rules the world outside of a football field, and he discovered tragically that his beaming personality and wonderful work ethic could not generate the kind of income he had become accustom to without a football field under his feet. When he was allowed to be a gladiator in the arena, the world was his for the taking, and he took it, but outside the stadium, the world took from him, and he gave it away thinking that his dynamic personality and work ethic could always provide what he needed. But it didn’t. However, a part of him will always be hanging in Raymond James Stadium, so in a way, Warren Sapp will return to the arena of football to stay. The Buccaneers will never let another player wear the number of Warren Sapp again—and they never should. Because it is unlikely that another player like Warren will ever take to the field again, because he was one of a kind, and still is.
You can visit Warren Sapp personally at his website by clicking the link below.
Matt Clark from WAAM radio interviewed Mike Maharrey from the Tenth Amendment Center (http://tenthamendmentcenter.com) to talk about his group’s work and ensuring the Constitution is followed. Mike talks about states nullifying the NDAA, health care exchanges, drone usage, and more.
“If they attack first………..blast em’!”
