Let’s begin with Reed Larson from 1997, over a decade ago. American society knew we had a problem then, and nothing changed. We have the same issues now, as we did then. So listen to Mr. Larson.
Now, do you think Reed is speaking out of turn? Well, listen Bob Chanin from 2009. After 41 years as the nation’s top education lawyer, Chanin closes his last Representative Assembly as general counsel with a stirring address to more than 8,000 delegates. Who wants to pay for this kind of “power?” I don’t.
The problem is, these people tend to be radical and on the left side of our political spectrum. If there was more of a balance of all political types, it would have more merit, and justification. But what happens is many of the union members adopt left winged policies in trade for the financial security the unions provide.
And this is how unions bring people under their ranks and ensure that everyone toes the line.
Here is a non-union truck driver trying to deliver his load to a union construction site. It’s a little long, but worth watching because it shows why businesses would rather do business with Right to Work States. Look how unproductive this activity is.
And when it’s thought that this is all a right winged conspiracy, it’s not. If a guy like Jeff Smith was running in my district, I’d vote for him even though he’s a democrat. I admire Jeff, not because of this speech, but because he’s a very hard worker and wants to be in politics for all the right reasons.
Left leaning citizens are always quick to protest the destruction of whales, or deforestation. They’ll protest drilling for oil in Alaska, or the rights of the gay population. But who’s protesting the thuggish influence workers unions have on state and national economies? Who!
So what’s going on in Wisconsin? Here is the platform for Governor Walker’s budget plans. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. The guy was elected by the citizens of Wisconsin to govern the state and balance the budget. If people wanted another democrat to further exacerbate their debts, they would have elected one. But they didn’t. So here is Walker’s proposal.
But listen to these people. Sounds like public education failed them miserably because they clearly don’t have a grip on reality. Where do they get these ideas?
Now, we’ve seen this locally, but it’s a national tactic, where teachers use our kids to fulfill their political and financial objectives. These children have no idea why they are at the rally. All they do know is that they are off school and doing what their teachers told them to do.
So what’s behind all this crazy stuff? That’s right, it’s good ol’ George. It’s all about ideological issues according to him, even though he’s smart enough to become rich, so he’s being misleading. What he really means is that the millions he’s spent pushing left winged agendas are being rejected by the part of the country that is in the political center and to the right of that center. The ideology that he speaks of is the mark he left through his influence on all the people shown above that are protesting something they don’t understand.
And of course here is President Obama’s position on all this. Obama is simply a spokesman to people like Soros who definitely have an agenda to subvert the Constitution. The victims of this activity can be seen in these protests.
I was playing a video game today called Left 4 Dead 2 which is a game where a bunch of thoughtless zombies try to suck your blood. It’s a fun game intended to be action packed and scary. The zombies in Left 4 Dead reminded me of these protestors. The protestors look like us. Talk like us, but they are sick and diseased with something that is dangerous to all of us. And I blame people like President Obama for doing his part to make those poor souls sick on his rhetoric. Obama is responsible for doing his part in creating the hostile climate we are seeing in Wisconsin.
Listen to the generals of this new kind of war. Because that’s what it is.
That’s not the exciting part. Actually, it’s deplorable that the system is exploring a levy in this economic climate. But we all know now, and this is one of the benefits of Senate Bill 5 introduced by Senator Shannon Jones, is that it seeks to eliminate step increases as a state law, which will give school boards much more control over their local finances, because as things stand today expanding school budgets are more or less out of our control. Thank the teachers union for that.
When S.B.5 is passed, it will help enormously with the type of budget problems that give districts an excuse to put levies on a ballot. So until a bill like S.B.5 is passed, we have to stop the growth of this entitlement culture by turning off the money supply through tax revenue. So Lebanon is a levy that must be defeated in May.
So to defeat a school levy, a good web site is very important and that’s why I am very proud to announce the creation of Lebanon Schools Facts.com http://lebanonschoolfacts.com/ that was created to bring the Lebanon Levy down in flaming defeat!
Their site is very impressive. It looks like they took what they liked from other web sites like the Mason site and the Lakota site and dramatically improved them for their own use. It’s packed with information and appears to be only the tip of the ice berg for what will prove to be an entertaining and informative election season. I have some preliminary information that has been sent to me, and once the information can be confirmed, that web site will be the place to break the info, and it will be very beneficial to helping the voters of Warren County decide if they want to support all this activity with a larger imposition on their property taxes.
When launched earlier in the week, the website had over 400 hits in its first 24 hours. Oddly within hours of the launch Joe Roberts resigned from his athletic director position. And before the election in May, there will be a lot more drama as the layers of hidden information gets peeled back to reveal what’s really at the core of this issue.
And be it known that I am fully behind the Anti-Levy effort of Lebanon. My goal at this point is reform at the state level and I believe throwing more money at public education in its current form is no different than paying off mob bosses in a Las Vegas Casino.
So trust me Lebanon Warriors, I dedicate this song to your cause and the lyrics of that song will be yours. It’s a song I listen to almost every day and I think it’s appropriate for you Lebanon Warriors. Listen to the words and enjoy the battle cry!
While these union protestors drive around listening to FM radio and following the current pop culture music trends, and watching popular TV shows like Two and a Half Men and laughing like fools at the adolescent humor of that show, they are ignoring the vast wealth of evidence that has emerged about the unsustainable path that America is on, and which they are participating in by practicing open extortion.
Many of my friends, some of them are seen in these pictures taken at the Rally at the State House on February 17, 2011, read a lot too. That’s why we’re friends because we enjoy learning things and we spend our spare time talking about the things we learn. My friends in the Tea Party are informed, speak for themselves, and are generally grounded people. The reason the Tea Party does not have a leader, is because that is not what the Tea Party is. America does not have leaders! The Tea Party does not have a leader!
The Tea Party Movement has been born because the people that don’t think with a “hive” mentality have been getting “stung” for years by the working bee union types that just keep scooping up the nectar of tax money and “coughing” it up for the queen, or whoever is their union leader. That money has then been used to buy political power that works against those original tax payers, so many of us have caught on to the scam.
American society was never intended to be a “hive” of any kind. It was supposed to be as the Tea Party is taking things, which is a society of individuals free of any queens or kings or leaders that are drunk on power.
So the Tea Party isn’t going away folks. If you are one of those “hive” workers, I’d advise you to use this site to your advantage. Listen to the radio broadcasts, read the material, watch the videos. I put them here to help you learn how to be self-reliant. I’m offering to help you break away from a “hive” mentality to save you from yourself. You’d be advised to use the material to your advantage.
But if you want to continue to be in the “hive” because you think there’s safety in numbers, you are betting on the wrong horse.
Unions think collective bargaining reform is about revenge, or it’s some conservative conspiracy. Yet this is what the union opposition say is happening. A guy sent me this comment while I was writing this article.
I listen to Doc’s show on 700; he is clueless on Labor and the issues that surround labor. Unions and collective bargaining have built the middle class in this country. What you’re seeing is big corporate interest trying to tear it down. Fire, Police, Teachers and all public workers should be getting a big thank you everyday for the job’s they perform. When you have a Gov that is bought and paid for by Wall ST. this is what you get.
Below is my own testimony for the record that I’ll include here in its entirety. It can’t be stressed enough how important this bill is to Ohio and the future of our financial strength. As the union groups attempt to fluff their feathers to appear larger than they truly are while real working people continue on with their jobs, too busy to attend such protests, feel free to make your voice in favor of this bill known by sending your support to Senator Bacon at the email address displayed.
Senator Kevin Bacon Ohio State Senate Columbus, OH
Re: SB 5 – For the Record
During the year of 2010 I was heavily involved in a resistance group to oppose the requested levy increases by the school district of Lakota, from South Western Ohio located in Butler County.
There are many reasons that I can see for the implementation of a collective bargaining reform bill such as Senate Bill 5. It is obvious to me and many of the voters that participated in defeating the Lakota Levy on both 2010 occasions that unions under the collective bargaining bill of 1983 have done what they accused business of doing, and that is acting greedily and knowing no limit to the impositions of their demands. Nor did they show any sign of caring what the cost off those impositions where to the tax payer. The result has been an unfair system that has formed between the public sector worker and the tax payer.
My focus of this testimony is on what I consider to be the most pertinent of the many benefits of S.B.5 and that is the elimination of “step increase” as a hidden cost that is deceiving communities all across Ohio. As much of the talk from Fire and Police Unions has centered on their lack of ability to strike, teachers can, and do. “Step Increases” are an ominous appeasement to those potential strikes that is largely hidden from the eyes of tax payers.
In October of 2008 the LEA (Lakota Education Association) threatened to strike and staged a demonstration against the school board. Their reasons for the strike were increased wages and benefits. In the small hours of the morning on the final day of contract talks a settlement was reached, and the LEA achieved its objective.
Two years later Lakota had an operating budget of $160 million dollars even with the declining revenue imposed under the Strickland Administration which favored allocation of state funds to poorer districts. Lakota saw a decline in state funding but through their property taxes, which saw approximately $11 dollars per $1,000 in home evaluation going directly to the schools, still maintained the large budget mentioned.
In the spring of 2010 again the LEA was pushing for a renewed contract and threatened to strike. They did this just months before a new levy request was being placed on the ballot in May. This was a reckless enterprise on their behalf and showed incredible arrogance in an economy that was already weakened. The residence of the Lakota District easily defeated that levy in May.
By August the LEA had announced that they would take a “pay freeze” in order to work with the school board on bringing down their costs as the announcement came from that same board that another levy attempt would be coming in November.
As I looked at the financial situation I realized that the reason the Lakota District was in trouble was because nearly 80% of their budget allocation was tied up in salaries and benefits, so it was obvious to me that the LEA should renegotiate their contract to fit the needs of the community. The average salary of a teacher at Lakota had been during much of 2010 $59,000 per year. As the new school year started that fall, those salaries on average had crept up to $62,000, and this was a baffling statistic. After all, the LEA had just agreed to a pay freeze.
I had loosely understood what “step increases” were but didn’t really give it much thought as to the impact on community budgets. I learned through the campaign that fall how devastating they truly are to financial forecasts. The reason is that often communities only consider the finances of their local districts. They don’t concern themselves with the affairs of their neighboring districts. However, the teachers unions do. The LEA is an arm of the OEA (Ohio Education Association) and they do have a statewide strategy that they impose district by district. It’s a game communities have been unaware was occurring, until now.
Knowing the game was larger than just the situation at Lakota I took my story to WLW radio in Cincinnati and engaged in many debates on the air hoping to get input from school districts around the region, and that’s how I learned about the terrible cost and manipulative nature of “step increases.”
As the facts that are known to many of the law makers that have graced Columbus for many years became apparent to me and a small army of tax protesters that were gathering in Southern Ohio and pockets all over the state, it became evident that communities were being selfishly misled intentionally and action would be needed to return real management power to the district where we elect members of the community to manage our resources.
School Boards under the current system have no choice but to just keep asking for increases in funding because they are so constrained by legislation lobbied and secured by the same forces that have collected themselves to protest this bill S.B.5 and the people who fund this activity have been manipulated and outright lied to regarding the intentions and motives of collective bargaining agreements.
This education funding issue that has plagued Ohio for decades is an unsustainable path, and collective bargaining is at the heart of the problem. I have planned to stand in the way of every single levy initiative for every district that wants my help until true reform is initiated from our State Representation. I consider any further property tax increases for any district in Ohio to be as good as throwing money on a fire. The money will not go to improving test scores for kids, or making children more comparable to students in the international stage. The entire nation is seeing the same story from its public education system, and it has failed in its current form. No amount of union rhetoric can hide that fact now. A majority of the voting public is now ready to admit it to themselves. Putting this bill on the table for discussion is a bold move by this legislative body and hopefully is a sign of things to come, for I do not believe if S.B.5 goes far enough. Many, many reforms will need to be implemented to give the State of Ohio the competitive advantage it needs to step out in front of the nation in education.
There are programs available that could save the State of Ohio a lot of money and make it a premiere state of education reform in the country. Representative Bill Coley from my district has started that process in the last session of congress with a technology bill which allows students to use technology to greater effect, and take away some of the “brick and mortar” costs imposed on school districts currently. There is also “School Choice” which is a phenomenal program utilizing all the best traits of competition to make education better, that will trickle down to the culture of the children attending those education systems.
But all those programs will take courage and they start by dealing with the type of resistance organized by groups like SEIU who have flown in protestors to lobby against this bill. They are applying their work to Wisconsin also where the governor there is also trying to reform their collective bargaining issues, only to be degraded as the villain from the Austin Powers films.
Such actions have taken our state through the collective bargaining process to extort millions of dollars from the intended target of those dollars and it has been to a loss of the entire state not only in being disingenuous to the tax payer, but to the competitive nature of the state as a whole. Over the next decade, the states which become swifter or most innovative will become the guardians of prosperity. Collective bargaining is a failed system that does nothing but help the people on one side of that bargaining, which leaves everyone else feeling depleted and used.
Innovation in most every category is available to Ohio ripe for the picking. But we have to have the courage to reach beyond the fence of collective bargaining to pick our harvest and unleash the true potential that resides among the true labor of Ohio.
Upon hearing the testimony in Columbus on February 15, 2011 primarily against Senate Bill 5 by the organized elements of union influence, I find it astonishing how many times I’ve heard, “we serve the public, when you call 911, we’re on the other side. That’s why we’re more important, and that’s why we should have collective bargaining because we are entitled to things because of the risks we take.”
Well, I never take bullet point answers at face value. I look deeply into everything. It’s a hobby of mine. Before I say what I’m going to say next, I’ll say that I see a certain value for police officers, firemen, and teachers, because they all kind of get thrown into the same pot. They cost a lot of tax money and most of what they sell is based on things most people don’t want to do themselves, so tax payers surrender some of their freedoms for the convenience and trained professionalism of those professions. A world without police officers would be more violent. Their presence in the world discourages bad guys from doing bad things.
However…………..my experience, which is extensive speaks that sometimes the bad guys are the cops themselves, and this occurs more frequently than people care to admit. It’s not popular to bring that little fact up, just like it’s not popular to question the integrity of teachers, because those professions through their union marketing machines, have made doing such a thing a social taboo. Reality though is a different story.
Ever wonder why so many police officers wear a mustache? Young boys when they first discover they can grow facial hair are quick to grow a mustache because they want to prove that they are men, or at least on their way. It’s a primal desire for males to gain acceptance with other males by displaying manhood and mustaches are a way to do it. My personal experience with people that have mustaches though is that when they have them, they are trying to hide something from public opinion or even from themselves, and wearing a mustache is a dead give-a-way to a person of questionable character.
I’ve raised two girls, and the very first thing I taught them about sex, and males is that if a young man or even a middle aged man has a mustache, don’t trust a thing they say. Look for the hidden messages in their words and never get too close to them. Now that’s a general term, and there are probably many good people that have mustaches and all they are hiding about themselves may be some secret desire to wear women’s clothing, or hiding from themselves an attractiveness to other males, so their secrets may be harmless. The dangerous mustache men are the ones that wear a mustache to hide what they are really up to, and that’s a quest for power, and an assertion of dominance over other males, and women which is a biological remnant from their adolescence which they carry into adulthood.
I’ve known of situations where police have been involved in many bad deeds, and most of them had mustaches. Not all of them. I know one that used to work for me that was very clean faced and took so many liberties with the truth that he could even lie to himself, and while he was a police officer he got himself into trouble pulling over women and exchanging sexual favors to get out of tickets. He was the worst kind of bad guy because he doesn’t give off visual clues to his intent. But as a general rule, as I explained to my kids, there is a reason in the early days of cinema that the villains had mustaches. Because at a primal level, the human mind acknowledges there is something not quite right with people that wear facial hair.
Among the many stories I could tell about bad police officers, that are using their positions of authority to profit themselves, I could testify that I actually had a police officer tell me to move from my home if I didn’t like the drug trafficking that was going on with the teenage kids that lived across the street from me years ago. What I found out was that this particular police officer had been a trouble maker when he was a kid and straightened himself out, or so he said. Turned out, he was making money on the side from the kids covering for their drug trade to kids at the high school. He had a mustache. Once he realized I was a “holy roller” as he spread the word through the police community, and that I was not going to play nice, he conspired with other officers to “lean” on me. There was a police offer that lived two homes down from me that worked in a different municipality, and yes, he had a mustache, and he became friends with the officer covering for the kid’s drug trade. He had teenage kids that behaved badly and I scolded them more than once for making too much noise or playing their radio too loud in front of my house, because it was disrespectful. I thought because their father was a cop, that he might see things my way, but he didn’t, instead he worked with his kids and the drug dealers across the street to run the “holy roller family” out of the neighborhood.
So I started video taping all this and I sent it to the chief of police thinking this bad behavior would be exposed. I actually had a drug deal on tape and I hand delivered it to the Chief.
All it did was make things worse.
These police officers did nothing to put themselves on the bad side of the law, other than turn their heads and take money for looking the other way. What they did do, and I see the same behavior from teachers trying to get their levies passed, it’s they use the kids to do their dirty work. That’s a common strategy, to get the youth to do the ugly stuff because they’re too young and naive to think for themselves.
The straw that broke the camels back came when a majority of the kids in the neighborhood turned against my kids for riding their bikes down the sidewalk of their own street, again encouraged by the police officer dad, and the corrupt local police officer, that a mob of these boys ranging from 16 to 19 gathered at the drug dealing house across the street from my home and called my wife a “bitch” when my wife confronted the boys about hassling my kids.
My wife called me at work; I left immediately and came home. Once I saw the mob I ran into the center of the to fight any of the kids that wanted to take a swing. There were about 22 to 25 of them, most of them just over 18. The boys didn’t expect that kind of aggressive action, so were unprepared. Eventually the mother of the house came out and had all those boys go inside her home leaving me by myself on the front yard. Technically I was wrong and could have been prosecuted for assault, but I estimated that she didn’t want the police to come break up the fight, and the police didn’t want to come, because they wanted deniability. So no cops came even though every neighbor up and down the street witnessed the act. I recognized that a situation of complete lawlessness was going on in my neighborhood and it occurred to me that the only way I could put a stop to it was to respond with violence and make a big incident of the issue that would transcend the community I lived in that was covering up this whole issue. I had been warned by the police officer that I either looked the other way as a resident or I move, because he wanted things to stay the way they were. And I wasn’t about to do that. So we had an all out war.
I began to patrol the neighborhood with my bicycle at night and if I caught kids out where they didn’t belong, I chased them down with my bullwhip. It got pretty violent at times.
My kids, who were only about 7 years old at the time, were hassled too. One boy that was about 15 spit on my oldest daughter while he was in a group of kids numbering more than 10. I tracked the kid down with my daughters and their friends in the car and dragged that kid by his shirt to his house and made him apologize on his knees to my daughter in front of his father who was working in his garage. His father was appalled and proclaimed that he was going to have me arrested because his son was under aged and he wanted to fight me, which I agreed to. Instead he called the police, but they never came, because it was me, and the police didn’t want to bring light to their other activity.
My wife and I eventually moved and bought a place that had some property and space. She and I agreed that we were the type of people that enjoyed our space and my bullwhip hobby was intimidating to many of our neighbors anyway. So we moved.
At my new place things worked well for a while, until I became involved in a property dispute in my township. Since I was the lead opposition to that property dispute I was a political target. My wife noticed that she was followed by township fireman everywhere she went. She kept seeing the same people. They never spoke to her, but they seemed to be everywhere she shopped. I told her not to worry about it.
We often built bon fires in our back yard which was legal, and I started to notice that every time I built them, someone would call the Fire Department.
Down the road would come a parade of Fire Trucks, police and even an ambulance to put out the bon fire I had in my backyard. One time in particular I had been practicing with my bullwhips in the back yard when 5 firemen and a few first responders came into my yard without saying a word to me with a hose to put out my little fire. I was furious.
I had a major argument with the police officers at the scene and the firemen that had brought 5 vehicles to my home, lights blaring and sirens whining. I counted 11 public officers at the scene, 8 of them had mustaches.
I gave them the cost of what bringing all those vehicles to my home cost the tax payer and when they heard that I spoke in that language they instantly backed off. “Sorry sir, we just wanted to check things out. We had a report.”
I said, “No, you are looking for a way to brag to your buddies, the township trustees, that you hassled me. And you did this in an attempt to embarrass me, and put me in my place. You’re showing off for your employers.”
They looked at me like guilty children caught stealing cookies. They said nothing more, got in their cars and trucks, and left.
I told my story in a commentary in the local paper and exposed the waste of tax payer funds in that trip to my house by the fire department. After that everyone pretty much left us alone. The fire department personnel stopped following my wife around. And they never bothered me again for a silly bon fire, which I continued to build.
I could go on for many pages more instances of such corruption. Like I established, I’ve employed people that went on to be police officers and I know the things that go on behind the public eye. I’m friends with people that are pretty important in the law enforcement community and I understand all too well that speeding tickets, DUI check points and other activities are all about generating revenue, and not public safety. And I know there are quotas, even though they aren’t called that directly. I know of cases where a home dealt drugs for years, but was “suddenly busted” when an important raid was needed for the papers for budget approval by the taxpayers.
And a vast majority of the participants of this questionable behavior were by officers that wear mustaches.
And this behavior is not unique to this decade. When I was a teenager I was at a party hosted by a cop. His daughter was the practice girl for the entire school, he knew it, and was fine with it. He provided alcohol openly to under aged kids and didn’t think anything of it. He wanted to be the “cool cop” in the neighborhood. He was almost identical in personality type to the officer I originally talked about, that was letting the house across the street deal drugs. He thought it was a good party till a big fight broke out on his front yard by two different guys that wanted to have sex with his daughter on the same night, and there were injuries that were embarrassing to him. But the EMT guys kept everything quit and the papers weren’t notified and he was never reprimanded. And he had a mustache.
It really comes down to a social decision. If society wants to be staffed at these levels in public service positions, that’s fine. But the unions spin their usefulness so they can justify the expense. When public servants realize their jobs are under scrutiny from the public, they’ll clean up their act. They may even shave off those mustaches and stop hiding the sins they commit when they think nobody is looking.
You get what you ask for and if you don’t ask or keep your eye on these crooked mustache men, they’ll play you for a fool. Without question there are many that will look at what I’ve written here and think it’s a conspiracy or that I am angry at public officials because I have a bone to pick. No, I have a history of sticking up for myself and others and when you do that you make enemies. And when you have enemies you see the true nature of people in their anger and actions. The difference between me and everyone else is that I’m willing to say what everyone else thinks, but don’t feel comfortable saying. I feel comfortable saying it because I’ve seen it for myself and can stand with certainty behind my words of what goes on behind the eyes of crooked men.
It never ceases to amaze me that the immigration issue isn’t a clear-cut issue. The Arizona law SB1070 was an attempt by Arizona to get its problems under control. Yet, when it was enacted the violent reaction to it by portions of our demographic society was alarmingly coordinated.
For all the advocates of “open borders” they are quick to call people like the man in the video below as a “conspiracy theorist” or a “radical” because that man sees that it’s wrong to not have a border that is enforced with some authority. And he is angry that the federal government had the audacity to initiate legal action against a state, just for trying to protect its border from another country.
Let me use another example. Sex used to have more value when women made men work for it. We live in a society that has cheapened everything, so it is difficult for people to see clearly the issue of border enforcement.
Over the summer of 2010 I interviewed Sheriff Jones of Butler County, Ohio who has been trying to convince Ohio to enact similar legislation as Arizona’s SB1070. He has gone so far to explore the possibility of suing the entire country of Mexico for the terrible cost it imposes on the United States. Why? Well, I’ll let the Sheriff explain it himself.
The ideology of the more liberal of America’s population want the border issue cheapened, which is why they are so upset that people like Sheriff Jones, and states like Arizona that are trying to bring value back to what being an American Citizen is.
If only all people would see that being an American should have continued value, and advocating a one world “Open Society” is a foolish enterprise. Making something less valuable so that other places won’t seem so bad is a terribly naive strategy.
And it’s not only bad policy, but it’s technically illegal. The danger is the parties involved in forcing Arizona to back off SB1070 are doing so with the assumption that they can actually bend the will of law to their philosophy through the coercion of imposed case-law.
It’s important that Americans understand what their rights are and how things are supposed to work. Because there are groups that will manipulate the truth to suit their own selfish needs, or political ideology and they’ll do it without any regard for the law.
Porter Standsberry had a great interview with Darryl Parks on 700 WLW. Standsberry has been accused of conspiracy theories and fear mongering. But in my experience those accusations come from people who can’t or don’t want to fathom the possibility of financial collapse in the United States. Listen to that great interview here:
Here is Porter Standsberry’s video referenced in the interview.
Listen to this interview of Speaker John Boehner by Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW. John is my congressman and lives down the road. He’s a good guy that is in a unique position. Listening to him speak here gives me some hope that he’ll get his arms around some of the problems Standsberry is talking about.
But as all these cuts are made, the groups that currently are funded by those dollars on the chopping block will wail in pain, and they’ll make it sound as if their world is falling apart. We’re already hearing the cries from S.B 5, and this is just the tip of the ice berg as to what will be cut in 2011 in order to stay ahead of the problems we know are coming.
Check out this link to see the debt clock currently.
The best way to describe the situation of powerful interests screaming with all the air their lungs can hold and pointing to visionaries that are proclaiming that there is danger just ahead, or the promise of a new world just around the corner, I resort to one of my best friends, literature.
Plato has the best explanation I’ve ever heard of this matter, from his book The Republic. He has a metaphor called The Allegory of the Cave. The text below is from the website: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/platoscave.html Plato
Book VII of The Republic
The Allegory of the Cave
Here’s a little story from Plato’s most famous book, The Republic. Socrates is talking to a young follower of his named Glaucon, and is telling him this fable to illustrate what it’s like to be a philosopher — a lover of wisdom: Most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance, because it is all we know. When we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you want more! It’s true that many people around you now may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don’t care. Once you’ve tasted the truth, you won’t ever want to go back to being ignorant!
________________________________________ [Socrates is speaking with Glaucon]
[Socrates:] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: –Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
[Glaucon:] I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent. You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?
Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?
No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
That is certain.
And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, — will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?
Far truer.
And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?
True, he said.
And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he ‘s forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
Not all in a moment, he said.
He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?
Certainly.
Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
Certainly.
He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? Clearly, he said, he would first see the sun and then reason about him.
And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
Certainly, he would.
And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer,
Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. Imagine once more, I said, such as one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
To be sure, he said.
And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death. No question, he said.
This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.
If you didn’t understand the literary explaination feel free to watch this video:
The union leaders and politicians are in many cases identical to the masters in the cave which have learned to identify the shapes on the wall and developed the ability to predict their comings and goings. In that world they are the masters and they have no desire for the truth which the visionary can report. That’s what I see in the faces of these protestors, a clamoring to ignorance in favor of their feeble grip on power. Many of them would rather stayed tied to a stake with their heads faced in one direction, yet masters of their one useful skill than knower’s of the truth, able to turn their heads and see what makes the shadows, because once that happened, they’d no longer be masters. Most ignorant people will trade freedom for power, and that’s what resistance to budget cuts represents. That’s why I despise unions and the cost they impose on civilization.
As for the financial information, attack your personal situations boldly and with intelligence. And when someone tells you what’s causing the shadows, you should listen.
