Yikes, I watched recently what may be the worst movie I have ever seen—which is very embarrassing for the movie. I mean, Jesus Christ—it was absolutely terrible. Diabolically ridiculous, lampoonist, flawed, disjointed—it was a wrecked concoction of poor philosophy, disastrously stupid politics, and a sheer waste of the three hours I spent watching it. Tragically, I hoped it would be good, Tom Hanks was in it, Halle Berry was as well, the Wachowski family was involved who did films like the Matrix and Speed Racer—so even though I thought I would dislike the politics—which were noticeably progressive—I hoped the movie would have its moments. It didn’t. It was just terrible and the only reason I am reviewing it is so that I can show readers here that not every movie review is good. Some people have accused me of working for Warner Brothers because of my glowing reviews of the Batman films, and Eastwood projects—but this—this Cloud Atlas—it was just wretched. It was like looking at something a dog puked up after eating feces in the yard mixed with freshly cut grass and garbage out of the hamper. It is unbelievable that anybody ever gave a green light for that movie because if that is what people in Hollywood think is a good movie, we are in big trouble.
I gave the film a chance because Roger Ebert loved it—he said he thought it was one of the most ambitious films ever made and was a complicated riddle that deserved multiple viewings. And parts of it were very ambitious, the budget was large, the visionary attempt was epic, and it had stars. Susan Sarandon’s inclusion almost made me not even watch it because of her active progressivism—but I recorded it on my DVR in March and finally got around to watching it in June out of obligation really. I felt because of what Ebert said that the film deserved attention, but I knew it was a progressive film—so I treated it like a trip to the dentist—something you don’t really enjoy, but is needed from time to time for basic maintenance. My conclusion was that Roger Ebert lost his mind. Cloud Atlas was that terrible.
The foundation of Cloud Atlas is deeply flawed making all the interesting interconnected storylines worthless. The film is about gay love, slavery, feminism, and is clearly against big oil. It is also about the worthless nature of individual lives and only concerned about how they fit into the larger tapestry of existence. Considering Ebert died shortly after Cloud Atlas I’ll give him a pass—maybe the idea of resurrection through a future life was something appealing to him in those last moments and he saw in the Cloud Atlas insanity a ray of hope for himself. The film was released around the same time that Atlas Shrugged Part II hit theaters and I remember well having to defend that film from people who loved Cloud Atlas. So I made a point to see the film at the first available moment which is why I recorded it. Being an open supporter of the filmmakers producing the Atlas Shrugged films, I wanted to understand how the other side could make such comparisons, and what I learned was that Cloud Atlas is the exact opposite philosophy of Atlas Shrugged. The two couldn’t be further apart in values—they have nothing in common other than the word “Atlas” in their titles.
And before anybody says that I didn’t understand the film………………….please, don’t waste the time. I understood all the metaphors in the film and I get the interaction of the characters and the various time periods. But to what point—so that the sick guy on the ship trying to get home to his wife who was really the future goddess of civilization could tell her bigoted father that she was running off with her husband? That was the closing scene and the climax of the picture?????????????????????????????? No, there was another climax, the one with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry married and living happily on another planet well into the future telling the story of Cloud Atlas to his grandchildren who wanted to look up at the stars and know which one was earth. Really???????????????????? I wasted three hours to come to that stupid revelation? You can refund money but you can’t refund time—and I am resentful that I lost three hours of my life to Cloud Atlas.
However, one thing that I did learn is that everything I say about progressives is absolutely 100% correct. Their world vision was on full display in Cloud Atlas and philosophically, they are like children right out of the womb—yet they believe they are at the height of human knowledge. Cloud Atlas was presented as an exclamation point and epic triumph toward progressive thought. Tom Hanks is a smart guy and a great actor—so he consciously took on multiple roles in the film. It was obviously for him a labor of love—he believed in the project intensely—and that concerns me greatly for his very mental health. There was nothing profound about Cloud Atlas. It was like watching the news with a progressive slant. It was ridiculously simple and anti-climatic. I mean crap…………..it was just terrible.
I understand that I hate progressive and liberal philosophy. Those idiots can call me a right-winger all they want—because if Cloud Atlas is what they think merits thought—they are thoughtless. They do not even have the ability to make a compelling argument if that is the best they can do. Cloud Atlas is the culmination of that kind of crappy Hollywood politics where screenplays are written by boot lickers at parties where drugs flow freely and everyone thinks they are brilliant from the vantage point of the little flat of land nudged up between the Pacific Ocean and the Nevada desert mountains. The Wachowski family is not the second coming. They likely ripped off the concept of the Matrix from another writer and have struggled to make a good film since—even though studios have thrown massive budgets at them. Larry Wachowski wrecked his life in the Hollywood Dungeon when he started hanging around with Iisa Strix and Buck Angel the transsexual known as “The Dude With a Pussy.” Worse yet, one of the directors of Cloud Atlas was Lana—who used to be Larry after he went through a sex change operation—so he is one of those LGBT people and that wrecked identity became Cloud Atlas.
It’s not that the many incidences in Cloud Atlas where male characters play females, and females play males was artistically wrong—it was just too simple. Anyone who bases their identity purely on sexual function is a lost cause—and in essence, this is what was going on in Cloud Atlas. The premise of the characters is from the vantage point of the kind of person who desires to engage in bondage in the Dungeon which is a huge part of that transsexual community in Los Angeles. But for the rest of the nation—it’s considered stupid. So while Cloud Atlas had a 10 minute standing ovation at Sundance and progressives raved about the film—it is only hard-core progressives who enjoyed it. For everyone else—it is ridiculously simple—and tragically limited in its philosophical outlook. What makes a person is not the holes they have in their bodies which allow for sexual penetration—it is the content of their minds—and in Cloud Atlas, the minds are disasters who made a film seething with liberal talking points ridiculously displayed as a work of art that belong nowhere else but in a litter box.
Ironically, I didn’t even know that Larry had turned himself into Lana before I watched Cloud Atlas. I discovered that trying to figure out why the movie was so fu**ed up. I was trying to understand how and why Warner Brothers distributed the film and discover who put up the money for the project and learn what on earth the directors were thinking. That’s when I learned that Larry never recovered from his divorce after being caught with the dominatrix Strix in the Dungeon—and had poured way too much mental energy into becoming a woman. He then directed a film about the quality of a soul regardless of gender roles over a long-span of time to justify his/her terrible decisions in life.
Wow……………………………
Do yourself a favor———never watch Cloud Atlas. Something’s are better left alone—and that movie is one of them.
We know better—America was formed as a philosophy not just another country and it was a direct response to many years of human failure. It was a flash in the pan relatively speaking and is now threatening to fade away back into history because of two primary forces always present in the nations of mankind—Attila and the Witch Doctor. Way back in 1961 Ayn Rand put her finger on these two types of characters in her book, For The New Intellectual. It was and continues to be a revolutionary mode of thinking that is the only path forward—which she identified as the forces of the brute Attila in perpetual conflict with the Witch Doctor—the man of spirit always with a gaze to the ever-after. America was a rejection of the Witch Doctor and a protection against the Attila types which allowed for a new kind of person—the “thinker”–to invent and create a new nation.
However, governments always desire to spring back into the mode of Attila—no matter what type of government it is and they use the Witch Doctor types as their crutches for aggressive action. The Witch Doctor type as well use the Attila types for their ascension and left unchecked will revert back into the old European mode of compete rule of Attila and the Witch Doctor over all of humanity. Presently the fault of this reversion is in the government sponsored education institutions specifically the public school system—capped off by the college system. Those education institutions specifically teach the systems of Attila and the Witch Doctor making them completely useless in the modern world. But before explaining why, please review the excerpts from the Ayn Rand classic below explaining firsthand what these two types of terrible characters are.
For the New Intellectual
(By Ayn Rand, the foremost philosopher for Capitalism) “When… an entire society is approaching bankruptcy, there are two courses that those involved can follow: they can evade the reality of their situation and act on a frantic, blind, range-of-the-moment expediency—not daring to look ahead, wishing no one would name the truth, yet desperately hoping that something will save them somehow—or they can identify the situation, check their premises, discover their hidden assets and start rebuilding.
“…America’s intellectual leadership has collapsed… America is a country without a voice or defense—a country sold out and abandoned by her intellectual bodyguards.
“The professional businessman and the professional intellectual came into existence together, as brothers born of the same industrial revolution. Both are the sons of capitalism—and if they perish, they will perish together…”
“…with very rare and brief exceptions, pre-capitalist societies had no place for the creative power of man’s mind, neither in the creation of power nor in the creation of wealth… Such societies were ruled by faith and its practical expression: force…”
“…the man of faith and the man of force… they are the actual leaders of most of mankind’s societies, who rise to power whenever men abandon reason…”
“…Attila, the man who rules by brute force… respects nothing but man’s muscles, and regards a fist, a club or a gun as the only answer to any problem—and the Witch Doctor… escapes into his emotions, into visions of some mystic realm where his wishes enjoy supernatural power unlimited by the absolute of nature.
“…Attila feels no need to understand, to explain nor even to ponder, how men manage to produce things he covets—‘somehow’ is a fully satisfactory answer… His view of the universe does not include the power of production. The power of destruction, of brute force, is to him, metaphysically omnipotent. Attila never thinks of creating, only of taking over.
“The Witch Doctor’s method… is the conquest of those who conquer those who conquer nature… With the Witch Doctor, emotions are tools of cognition, and wishes take precedence over facts. …knowledge of the universe will be granted to him by blind, unfocused stare of his eyes turned inward, contemplating the sensations, the feelings, the urgings, the muggy associational twistings projected by the rudderless mechanism of his undirected consciousness. Whatever his mechanism produces is an absolute not to be questioned; and whenever it clashes with reality, it is reality he ignores… The only validation of his consciousness he can obtain on earth is the belief and the obedience of others, when they accept his ‘truth’ as superior to their own perception of reality. While Attila extorts their obedience by means of a club, the Witch Doctor obtains it by means of a much more powerful weapon: he pre-empts the field of morality.
“…they come to need each other. Attila feels that the Witch Doctor can give him what he lacks: a long-range view, and insurance against the dark unknown of tomorrow or next week or next year, a code of moral values to sanction his actions and disarm his victims. The Witch Doctor feels that Attila can give him the material means of survival, can protect him from physical reality, can spare him the necessity of practical action, can enforce his mystic edicts on any recalcitrant who may choose to challenge his authority. Both of them are incomplete parts of a human being, who seek completion in each other…
“…The power of ideas has no reality for either of them, and neither cares to learn that the proof of their power lies in his own chronic sense of guilt and terror.
“Thus Attila and the Witch Doctor form an alliance and divide their respective domains. Attila rules the realm of men’s physical existence—the Witch Doctor rules the realm of men’s consciousness. Attila herds men into armies—the Witch Doctor sets the armies’ goals. Attila conquers empires—the Witch Doctor writes the laws. Attila loots and plunders—the Witch Doctor exhorts the victims to surpass their selfish concern with material property. Attila slaughters—the Witch Doctor proclaims to the survivors that scourges are a retribution for their sins. Attila rules by fear, by keeping men under a constant threat of destruction—the Witch Doctor rules by means of guilt, by keeping men convinced of their innate depravity, impotence and insignificance.
“Against whom is this alliance formed? Against those men whose existence and character both Attila and the Witch Doctor refuse to admit into their view of the universe; the men who produce. In any age or society, there are men who think and work, who discover how to deal with existence, how to produce the intellectual and material values it requires. These are the men who produce the means of survival for the parasites of all varieties: The Attilas and the Witch Doctors and the human ballast. The ballast consists of those who go through life in a state of unfocused stupor, merely repeating the words and the motions they learned from others. But the men from whom they learn, the men who discover any scrap of knowledge, are the men who deal with reality, with the task of conquering nature, and exercising their rational facility.
“A Producer is any man who works and knows what he is doing. He may function on a fully human, conceptual level of awareness only some part of this time, but, to that extent, he is the Atlas who supports the existence of mankind…” (Excerpts from Ayn Rand’s “For the New Intellectual,” copyright 1961.)
When a public school hosts a pep rally for their football team to beat a cross town rival, what is being taught to the students is the mode of Attila—that conquest, force and might rule under the Friday Night Lights and that the entire community—like the nations of the world—will get behind their school sponsoring the team stepping out onto the battlefield. Students at the school must learn where they fit into the pecking order of society in such a system because the power is on full display. Of course the players of the game are at the top of such food chains with school administrators joining their ranks among the socially powerful—because they decide who plays in the battle and who doesn’t. From there society tiers off downward by order of importance—but within those class rooms when the lights are not on for football games, the way of the Witch Doctor is being taught. This would be the climate terrorism that is so prevalent—the avocation of religious tolerance such as the current insurgency of the Muslim faith. Other aspects of the Witch Doctor are the labor unions themselves who control the teachers in these schools—their position is a combination of force and mysticism. They have no idea where the money comes from or where it goes, they just want it—so they take it by force with strikes, public slander, and sheer intimidation. The byproduct of this activity has been an education system ruled by Attila and the Witch Doctors creating several generations of Americans who only understand those two modes of thinking.
There is a third class—for which I am proud to be a part—those are the thinkers. When the thinkers of the world wonder why so many American citizens are so apathetic toward the current scandals in the White House, or seem paralyzed to act against the bizarre notions of the green movement—it is because the modes of thinking that are committing the crimes are due to Attila and the Witch Doctors who are in control of politics, art and entertainment, and the entire intellectual class as it is currently understood. Because most people are taught to be Attila or the Witch Doctor, they are paralyzed to act on what they see is a crime committed right in front of their face. Intellectually, they have been paralyzed into inaction by their education systems leaving them defenseless to make any judgments against.
Saul Alinsky who taught Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the methods of eroding away power from those who had it understood this whole Attila and the Witch Doctor mentality and his methods of activism were designed to exploit it—which Obama has done to hide his many crimes. Read below a few excerpts from his “masterpiece” Rules for Radicals which came out ten years after Ayn Rand’s For The New Intellectual to gain an understanding of the way that crimes are committed by radicals but are pardoned by a public respectful of the Attila types who rule over them with force—and are often stuck between the Witch Doctor types who seem to have all the answers. The system that Alinsky is talking about in the following quotes was created by the public education system giving vast numbers of American citizens a complete paralysis in the face of such forces because intellectually they are not equipped to deal with the assault. Modern Americans functioning from respect of Attila have lost the ability to think leaving them vulnerable to Alinsky’s methods of attack—which is destroying the nation presently—and purposely.
Rules for Radicals
by Saul D. Alinsky
“Today’s generation is desperately trying to make some sense out of their lives and out of the world. Most of them are products of the middle class. They have rejected their materialistic backgrounds, the goal of a well-paid job, suburban home, automobile, country club membership, first-class travel, status, security, and everything that meant success to their parents. They have had it. They watched it lead their parents to tranquilizers, alcohol, long-term-endurance marriages, or divorces, high blood pressure, ulcers, frustration and the disillusionment of the “good life,” They have seen the almost unbelievable idiocy of our political leadership – in the past political leaders, ranging from the mayors to governors to the White House, were regarded with respect and almost reverence; today they are viewed with contempt. This negativism now extends to all institutions, from the police and the courts to “the system” itself. We are living in a world of mass media which daily exposes society’s innate hypocrisy, its contradictions and the apparent failure of almost every facet of our social and political life. The young have seen their “activist” participatory democracy turn into its antithesis – nihilistic bombing and murder. The political panaceas of the past, such as the revolutions in Russia and China, have become the same old stuff under a different name. The search for freedom does not seem to have any road or destination. The young are inundated with a barrage of information and facts so overwhelming that the world has come to seem an utter bedlam, which has them spinning in a frenzy, looking for what man has always looked for from the beginning of time, a way of life that has some meaning or sense. A way of life means a certain degree of order where things have some relationship and can be pieced together into a system that at least provides some clues to what life is about. Men have always yearned for and sought direction by setting up religions, inventing political philosophies, creating scientific systems like Newton’s, or formulating ideologies of various kinds. This is what is behind the common cliché, “getting it all together” – despite the realization that all values and factors are relative, fluid, and changing, and that it will be possible to “get it all together” only relatively. The elements will shift and move together just like the changing pattern in a turning kaleidoscope.
For the real radical, doing “his thing” is to do the social thing, for and with people. In a world where everything is so interrelated that one fells helpless to know where or how to grab hold and act, defeat sets in’ for years there have been people who’ve found society too overwhelming and have withdrawn, concentrated on “doing their own thing.” Generally we have put them into mental hospitals and diagnosed them as schizophrenics. If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair. If I were organizing in a orthodox Jewish community I would not walk in there eating a ham sandwich, unless I wanted to be rejected so I could have an excuse to cop out. My “thing,” if I want to organize, is solid communication with the people in the community. Lacking communication I am in reality silent; throughout history silence has been regarded as assent – in this case assent to the system.
As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be – it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system.”
Alinsky here has set himself up as the Witch Doctor and Obama and Clinton have come to suckle from his nectar and are presently using it to destroy the world in much the way that the same Witch Doctors destroyed the world after the fall of the Roman Empire and ushered in the Dark Ages. During that period in human history, it was religion that held down the minds of man. Today, it is another religion—this time worship of Mother Earth as the deity of highlight. Society must then fall in behind the Witch Doctor because they are intellectually incapable to reason through the problem because their efforts have been placed into the role of Attila—the conqueror.
The way out of this whole scandal literally and intellectually is to discard Attila and eradicate the Witch Doctor from the language of human activity. It is those two forces which destroy advancement of civilizations and currently brings much misery to the world. And it is specifically those two ways of thinking that are the primary topics taught in modern education no matter where in the world things are taught. And for the human mind—there really isn’t anything worse than learning to be like Attila or the Witch Doctor. Both are ancient evils meant to be surpassed and leave the lives of mankind vulnerable to real threats such as Saul Alinsky who wish to build empires on the backs of human slaves shackled not with literal chains, but intellectual ineptitude.
In this way the education systems of present must be completely dismantled and rebuilt to create thinkers. The focus should be on that brief moment in human history where America invented The New Intellectual and gave birth to a nation that ended slavery, invented new economical means, and freed the minds of mankind wherever the philosophy of America touched. Those who hate America hate it because they wish to be either Attila or the Witch Doctor. Their cries against imperialism are not the rule of Attila which typically belongs to a brute force, but in the ability to stand up against such force—and they don’t like it. This is why so many in the world who wish to rule by either force or religious mystics desire to see American dismantled and destroyed. Because the Attila types in the world wish to rule over mankind and the Witch Doctors wish to rule over Attila. They can only do that if Attila first conquers the world. This is why those who hate America desire the brute force of Islam to have their caliphate—because then Attila will have won leaving the Witch Doctors open to place shackles on the minds of the entire world. All this begins so innocently in the public education institutions sponsored by government desiring not to build minds, but compliant servants to Attila and the Witch Doctor.
Most people use religion as a bridge to step over bad behavior into what they think is everlasting life. It allows them to make mistakes in their daily living by attending a church on Sunday and being forgiven by some deity. I would encourage you dear reader that if you are too weak-minded to live your life well, to not drink too much, have sex with too many partners, molest the youth, or treat others poorly without the fear of God to keep you in check, than this article is not for you. Keep attending your religion—keep reading its text, and preparing for the life ever after. Because I would rather you waste your life with such a sacrifice if it keeps you from being just another tyrant over the lives of others. But for those with a little discipline and self driven curiosity it is time to scrap the old for the new in regards to religion and come up with some new mythologies which are more meaningful.
Even atheism has become a religion of sorts—its function is to declare that life is to be lived now and it has a kind of hedonism aspect to its followers which is not what I’m talking about. The trouble with the human being is the collective notion of sacrifice which needs to be eradicated without the value of religion being stripped away—the establishment of positive parameters to live life by. If that could be done, than religion would earn its worth, and lose the destructive nature indicative to its existence in whatever form it arrives—whether it is Islamic, Christian, Buddhist or Jewish—it is time to stop worshiping the life and times of old mythologies and folklore with a blind adherence to historical fact. Most of those stories from all the major religions were passed down second-handed from one group of power controllers to another and cannot be trusted. The contents of the writing have been fed to a collective public more to control behavior than to usher them off into the next life—and given what science is attempting to show the human race—they are no longer relevant.
All religions are based on faith, which forces a participant to accept things without evidence. Once the mind is opened to this folly it tends to do the same for virtually everything it encounters. As an example, the Saul Alinsky method which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama so effectively uses allows them to gain a kind of religious following by appealing to the part of a human brain which has been opened to accept religious mythology as fact. This allows them to stand in front of people like a high priest and utter complete lies without anybody questioning them—hiding their bad behavior in the light of day. It was Hillary Clinton who wrote a thesis on Alinsky while at Wellesley College for which she received an “A.” Saul Alinsky offered her a job for her two interviews which Hillary declined. Barack Obama is of the same mind as both Alinsky and Clinton and within the social circles of community organizers and attorneys, they learned how to use Alinsky methods to appeal to the religious nature of people and force them to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Hillary in her critique cited benefactors of Alinsky’s approach to Martin Luther King Jr. and Walt Whitman in the way that Mormons cite Joseph Smith, or Christians do Jesus Christ, or Islam reveres Muhammad. This places the characters of the narrative above reproach and prevents analysis of their actions. Once this is done further inquiry into their motives cease and faith takes over as the guiding light.
More is hidden from the human being under this process than anybody acknowledges and is the largest contributors to the spread of evil throughout the world. The religion itself might actually be beneficial on one level, but since the mind as been opened to accepting things on faith then a chain reaction of bad events often follows. Politicians aligning themselves with a religious order use this open door to get people to accept higher taxes, political corruption, and even the premise of war applying basically the same Saul Alinsky methods. The religious high priest does the same to manipulate the public into committing collective evil without consideration. Because the masses view their participation as a collective enterprise, they use faith to accept their role and cast off logic to the “hand of god.” In this way they do not take responsibility in life for their actions, but instead defer responsibility to a “higher order.”
Once a mind shuns responsibility for their thoughtless actions on their religion, they will do it for their career, their family, their daily commute and soon everything that happens to them is “meant to be,” as if some god were steering their life-like a car down a lost highway. This takes away the responsibility for living and allows people to believe that they are part of something bigger—which then sets the stage for political corruption when the same methods are applied to pass school levies, take away the Second Amendment, or pass Obamacare.
I have thoughts on what should replace the old religions—which are clearly ineffective in the modern world. The life and times of the characters in the Bible, or in the Quran are outdated and no longer relevant. If there is one trait that could be blamed on the Middle East not accepting capitalism and still looking like it did in the times of their religious leaders of thousands of years ago—it is that their religions hold back their social development.
In my family there is a joke about the archangel Gabriel where I say that he met Mary outside of their village and had an affair with her for which she became pregnant. Back then, a woman who became pregnant without having a husband was often killed, so Mary came up with the story of immaculate conception to explain how she came to be in that condition. The reason it’s a joke is because that same Gabriel came to Muhammad in a cave and recited the Quran which then became the sacred text of the fast growing religion in the world. Gabriel was a busy guy…………….he was a lot of places at the start of these two religions—where to this day are in constant conflict in Jerusalem and everywhere else they meet.
I have read the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine for over thirty years and watched carefully the events of study in the Middle East, particularly Israel, Jordon, Egypt and Iraq, and my conclusion was that Gabriel was either a Jim Jones, or Charlie Manson type—charismatic leaders who were deranged intellectually and ran around planting all kinds of seeds—having sex with women putting them in danger culturally and speaking nonsense to lonely hermits in a cave—and anybody else who would listen. Or that Gabriel was some kind of ultraterrestrial prankster designed to occupy the mind of man foolishly on low-level intellectual pursuits while they pulled the strings of society in the desired direction. But what Gabriel was not–was sacred.
I’ve had a few run-ins with these Gabriel types over the years and always send them packing. It helps to be intellectually fit so to see through their ruse—but for irresponsible people looking for a miracle at every turn of their lives living hapless existences like a pinball caught between the bumpers of life—Gabriel types find their minds ripe for plunder. And they become the next tyrants thinking they are bringing to the world a boon.
It is time to evolve and religion as we know it today is holding down the human race. It might hold some individuals together—giving them purpose and meaning. But ultimately that meaning is toward the ends of collectivism and works against individual responsibility. The number one reason that people are having a hard time with capitalism as an economic engine for their nations and instead gravitate toward socialism is because of their addiction to religion and hatred of self-responsible activity. Religion feeds this lack of self-initiative and instead provides a crutch into the next life—allowing this life to be lived poorly and recklessly. After all isn’t it the Christian premise to declare that “we are all sinners?” So what’s the point? Let’s just do what they tell us and hope we can live better in Heaven for eternity. In the meantime we do what our preachers tell us to do, and if our politicians say the same kind of things-we follow them as well. And vast amounts of evil spread across the world as a result—all in the name of some god at the center of religion inspired most of the time by the archangel Gabriel.
It would not surprise me to learn that while Gautama Buddha was sitting under the tree of enlightenment and was approached by the demon Mara where temptations were presented—that Mara’s real name was Gabriel and that he was a feisty traveler with malicious intentions similar to Saul Alisnsky—who was just a “community organizer” who carried on his tongue the end of civilization and single-minded purpose to have sex with lonely women and use religion to pull them into his tent. Thus began all of the world’s primary religions.
It’s time to rethink things—without such people a part of the process.
For those who thought I was unfair toward President Obama when his campaign opened an office in Mason, Ohio—history has proven me right once again. As usual, those types of people who lean in that particular political direction as Obama supporters have shown why they are so incompetent and living evidence as to why democracies will always fail. The mob cannot rule—because collectively they are too stupid to. I said so much about the Obama supporters who showed up to open the Mason office and many thought I was too harsh. Well, what does anybody think now?
Obama is the worst president in American history and may go down as one of the worst leaders in the history of the world, which is saying a lot considering Europe had some terrible kings, and the Roman Empire had a large percentage of fools serving as Emperor. Obama has proven as President of the United States that he is either a diabolical terrorist sent to undermine America as a world power, or he is a complete idiot incompetent to manage anything or anyone. I have often said that Obama was not qualified to manage even a McDonald’s restaurant—and this statement has more than proven to be true. Granted, managing a McDonald’s is not an easy task on a good day, but one would think that it should be within the management capacity of the world’s most powerful so-called leader. Obama could not even do such a thing—he is completely and utterly incompetent.
The list of scandals is growing under Obama’s care, and if there were a defining moment when Obama lost control of his foreign policy, it was Syria when he did not make good on his promise to defend a metaphorical line in the sand. This opened up the opportunity for Russia to push the U.S. in Ukraine, this antagonized aggression in Iran, Iraq and embolden terrorists in Afghanistan—as well as throughout the Middle-East. The wheels are now completely off, and are rapidly deteriorating. The world knows Obama is a fool, and they no longer respect American involvement in anything—which is the fault of the President and his administration.
Obama has in his Justice Department a common thug in Eric Holder involved in scandal after scandal from the IRS, gun dealing, open border debacles, and NSA surveillance. Obama has screwed up virtually everything he has touched in every category that he has touched it. If he has done anything right, it is in his con artist presentation—his ability to get elected and make promises—but he has not been able to make good on anything. I have often referred to him as a used car salesman—who will do and say anything to sell a car—but once you get the car—you realize it’s a lemon. What Obama gives isn’t even a lemon—it’s rather a picture of a lemon printed on garbage.
Obama’s ultimate failure is his socialism that he brought to the American economy. If Bush ran America into debt fighting terrorism, and attacking the free market with micromanagement—Obama put a dagger square in the back of capitalism placing the American economy into the hands of complete idiots—much like himself. Whether it is the Veterans Affairs scandals of mismanagement which actually killed innocent people—it is Obamacare which is destroying the greatest healthcare system in the world. Obama has propped up unionized businesses foolishly and squandered away billions of dollars on green energy hippie concerns. He has further strangled the U.S. economy by going to war with coal, and using the EPA to halt virtually every business development in the nation with over-regulation and government enforced corruption. Before Obama it was difficult to do business with the federal government—now it is nearly impossible. Mindless bureaucrats are in charge of creativity and productive enterprise—which has nearly stopped manufacturing and new job growth. All Obama can do to solve the problem is mindlessly create more government jobs like firefighters, cops, and teachers—or even worse, IRS agents, healthcare workers, or EPA staff which are simply flow over members of the Sierra Club and PETA. He has given activists power over the productive and the productive have simply thrown up their hands and said to hell with it. It’s not worth the headache, the law suits and the pain in the ass to start a new business. Even if a company could launch a new product, their profits are confiscated by the federal government and distributed to the poor, the lazy, and the idiot—the typical Obama supporter. Productivity under Obama has stopped. Existing companies have held their own, but new growth has been embarrassingly stagnating in future development and implementation through capital assets. That is the fault of Obama and his policies of federal terrorism of capitalism.
Obama spent the first four years blaming the previous administration on the state of the world. Now, six years into his presidency, he owns the parade of follies shown daily on the nightly news. All his bad management has caught up to him and he can no longer escape it. What will turn out to be his greatest failure will be that he did win a second term—because history will remember his faults instead of giving him the benefit of doubt of the four years he would have been in office left unproven. Now, he is proven. He’s a proven fool and is simply embarrassing as a human being—let alone a manager of anything.
Obama is way over his head and is proof of what happens when you put a radical community organizer into a responsible position. America and all the trouble currently plaguing the freest country on earth is the result of putting an idiot—and domestic terrorist like Obama into a governing position. Whether Obama is a terrorist by deliberate deceit or under just being a fool is the only question left to answer. Obama will always be known as the worst president in American history and a major step backward in human development. The results of his life and times as an American politician are now beyond refute and are solely in his possession. America would have done much better if it had simply plucked a stressed out fast food manager out of a nearby restaurant and put them in The White House. The results would have been much more productive.
As dire as things may seem socio-economically, politically, and philosophically, there are a number of truly wonderful developments which are taking mankind on a marvelous journey. My enthusiasm for the Star Wars space vessel, The Millennium Falcon is well chronicled, and one of the most obvious reasons for it is shown during the development of a brand new computer game called Space Engineers. A very clever player in that game during its development phase—as the game is not yet completed–has done in that computer realm what I have long thought will actually happen in the not so distant future. Space vehicles will no longer resemble the old shapes of the past created by stuffy German engineers from the World War II generation, but the ambitious children who grew up on the popular movie series Star Wars. For many years I have thought that the most practical ship design to carry travelers from some space port in Florida, or New York to say a Hilton on the Moon, then to a series of exotic space stations circling the Earth as luxurious resorts was a real Millennium Falcon. Once antigravity technology is mastered, there really isn’t any reason that such a design could not be implemented for such journeys. This is essentially what a player of the new game did; they built a Millennium Falcon in the game and actually made it so it could fly practically with a series of reactors and gyroscopes. The surface propulsion units are distributed the way they actually would be in order to fly through space—and actually solves some of the initial design concerns for future space travel. Have a look.
The new game is exciting to me because it is a prequel to what is coming for the human race. Once human minds behold such concepts, real life implementation is not far behind. Chris Lee is already building a full-sized Millennium Falcon in Nashville, Tennessee and private investors are moving into independent space travel presently eclipsing the efforts of governments over the years. It is not so outlandish any longer to behold that a real Millennium Falcon could be built and flown about in space. The new game Space Engineers allows for such things. It looks to be the new Minecraft, a game so popular that school teachers are often playing it during their class time in school from their laptops. Minecraft is not popular because the graphics are so pristine, but because the creativity the game allows encourages thought, and human beings in spite of the trends in the other direction which are mostly self-imposed destruction—love to think. In Space Engineers one of the most dominant early designs of ships which can fly are those from Star Wars. The mechanics in Space Engineers are like Lego blocks, only in a computer environment. This allows human beings to build virtually anything and everything they desire—much the way children do. Adults have the same yearnings, and it is not an accident that one of the first ships built-in Space Engineers is a Millennium Falcon, one that can be walked around in, and flown from one point to another. Other ships built have been some of the large capital ships fully rendered in scale which can actually be piloted.
From the game designer’s website a space engineer is a professional practitioner who uses scientific knowledge, mathematics, physics, astronomy, propulsion technology, materials science, structural analysis, manufacturing and ingenuity to solve practical problems in space.
Space engineers design materials, structures and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, ethicality and cost. Space engineers are grounded in applied sciences and their work in research and development is distinct from the basic research focus of space scientists.
Practical solutions:
engineering, construction and maintenance of space works: open-space stations, asteroid stations, space crafts of all sizes and utilization (civil and military), remote sensing technology, artificial gravity generators
asteroid mining (mostly near a construction site)
maintaining lines of transport and communications
industrial and scientific research, development and exploration
In war times, space engineering involves military engineering as well. Such tasks typically include construction and demolition tasks under combat conditions. Military engineers use practices and techniques of camouflage, reconnaissance, communication methods and enhancement of survival by other troops. They are also responsible for construction rigging, the use of explosives and carrying out demolitions, camouflage erection, battleship construction and design, field fortification construction, artillery outpost construction, obstacle clearance, obstacle construction, assault of fortifications, the use of assault ships in obstacle crossings, expedient space station construction, general construction, route reconnaissance, and communication installations. They are also responsible for logistics behind military tactics.
Space engineers are in a high demand, especially since the Second Space Race of 2029. They take pride in their ability to get the job done right—no matter how big, how complex or how remote.
The word “engineer” derives from the Latin root ingeniare (“to contrive, devise”) and ingenium (“cleverness”).
FEATURES
Game modes
– Creative – unlimited resources, instant building, no death – Survival – realistic management of resources and inventory capacity; manual building; death/respawn
Single-player – you are the sole space engineer
Multiplayer
– Creative and survival mode with your friends
– Cooperative and competitive
– Privacy customization: offline, private, friends only, public
– Max 16 players (this may increase in the future)
– Weapons on/off
– Copy-paste on/off
Scenarios
– Easy Start 1 – start on an asteroid platform with one large ship and two small ships
– Easy Start 2 – start in a green asteroid station with several large and small ships (large scene!)
– Lone Survivor – start on an abandoned asteroid platform with no ships
– Crashed Red Ship – your mother ship just crashed…
– Two Platforms – competitive two-team multi-player world
– Asteroids – start in a rescue ship with very limited resources
– Empty World – no asteroids, no ships; suitable for creative mode
Dedicated servers – allow players to connect to a third-party host, rather than using a player-host, in a peer-to-peer set-up. The result is a faster connection and a more fluent multiplayer performance with less lag
Ships (small and large) – build and pilot them
Space stations
First-person & Third-person
Drilling / harvesting
Manual building in survival mode – use welder to assemble blocks from components; use grinder to disassemble and reuse components
Deformable and destructible objects – real proportions, mass, storage capacity, integrity
Building blocks – light armor (cube, slope, corner), heavy armor, interior wall, interior light, small cockpit, large cockpit, cargo container(s), drill, ore detector, gravity generator, nuclear reactor, thruster, gyroscope, assembler, medical room, magnetic landing gears, spotlight, catwalk, cover wall, stairs, ramp, window(s), pillar, decoy, wheels, automated turrets, weapons, artificial mass, conveyor, collector, connector, merge block
Magnetic landing gears – attach your ship to a surface (another ship or asteroid)
Electricity – all blocks in a grid are wired in an electrical and computer network; electricity is generated by nuclear reactors
Gravity – produced by gravity generators
Rotors – create rotating objects
Refinery – process harvested ore to ingots
Assembler – manufacture components from ingots
Symmetry/Mirroring – useful in creative mode when building structures that require symmetry
Weapons – automatic rifle, small and large explosive warheads, small ship gatling gun, small ship missile launcher
Large weapons – missile launcher (for large ships)
Solar panels – produce energy depending on the amount of light that they catch from the sun
World management – generate new worlds, “save as” to multiple copies, auto-save every 5 minutes (can be turned on/off), edit world settings
32-bit & 64-bit – 64-bit version expands the amount of objects, ships and asteroids (almost unlimited)
Steam Workshop – share your creations with the Community (upload and download worlds)
Modding – world files, shaders, textures, 3D models
Custom colors for blocks – Customize your creations by using any color you like
Cargo ships – auto-piloted vessels (miners, freighters and military) that carry ore, ingots, constructions components and other materials from sector to sector. They can be looted but beware, they often contain booby traps!
Environmental hazards – protect your character and your creations from meteor storms (Safe, Normal, Cataclysm, Armageddon)
Conveyor, Collector, Connector (IMPORTANT: this is a first work-in-progress version and a realistic version will be added later) – Conveyors move items from inventory to inventory. Collectors can collect small objects (ore, ingots, components, tools) into inventory. Connectors can throw items from inventory to space (in future update could be used to connect two ships/stations and transfer items). Gameplay note: Explanation of pull & push principles in conveyor system
Artificial mass – can be used to add gravity-affected mass to ships, useful in machine ships or cars
Wheels – use them with rotors and artificial mass to build vehicles
Automated turrets – gatling, missile and interior. Turrets are used mostly as defense mechanism rather than shooting other players. They aim on decoys (automatically by default), meteorites, missiles or all moving objects (eg. small/large ships) – targeting can be changed in the control panel
Large/small ship grinder and welder – assemble and disassemble blocks faster and in larger amount
Now, what can be better than all of that! What’s best is the game is designed to be step over between the science past and the science future. It is a new generation of massive online gaming that is intelligently based, and it is certain that current players will be tomorrow’s actual Space Engineers—who will realistically design these kinds of things in the next couple of decades. It would not surprise me to find that in the not too distant future, I will be able to build a real Millennium Falcon and actually fly it around from colonies on Mars, to the Moon and anywhere else human beings settle in space within the next 100 years.
Imagination is taking us to that space destination. Education systems have not kept up and have outdated themselves to inventions like this latest remarkable game. Humans are naturally inclined to the kind of creativity they can experience in these types of games, and are quickly outgrowing the terrestrial limits of earth and its small-minded politics. Seeing The Millennium Falcon flying around in Space Engineers is the first indication of what the future will look like as today’s game players invent a reality to play out the images painted across their minds born of creativity. The origin of much of this creativity will be the familiar Millennium Falcon as millions share with me the desire to actually walk around and fly the real thing first introduced to their imaginations in the Star Wars saga. Space Engineers is an exciting game, and is a step into a future that is much more ambitious than anyone previously thought. It is a window into a future that will not be rooted in the limitations of oppression driven by ignorance, but the unknowable extension of the human imagination and what it can build if restrictions are removed.
Over the Memorial Day weekend there were a lot of issues discussed among family and friends–the sports scores of the local baseball teams, the Hockey playoffs, the NBA playoffs, how well the respective NFL teams did in the recent draft, the latest summer box office films and the general emptiness of economic purchases. But the extent of discussion about what is really important, topics like politics and philosophy, only general rumblings about President Obama made the cut. Over the weekend, my father-in-law turned 70 and we wanted to treat him to the movie Godzilla. Along the way to the theater, from his very affluent neighborhood and the surrounding area which is well above average in per capita income—economic activity was vibrant. Restaurants were full, stores were packed, and the movie house was crowded—there was no trace of the generally terrible economic news which is about to hit America. All seemed well.
After the movie there was a very nice party for my father-in-law who loved the Godzilla film and was enjoying his birthday to a live blue grass band hired for his personal entertainment. I watched the party goers closely, mostly avoiding the devastating news that the American economy is nowhere near as good as it appeared. There is trouble coming, which is in evidence by the fact that the news no longer covers the terrible events of Greece, Italy, or Cyprus, because there is no end in sight for them to prosper economically. Their financial crises did not go away—they just stopped being covered—and the same fiscal cliff is headed for our shores in North America.
I thought of an article I had just read by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com which did a good job of painting a picture of how bad the economy actually is caused in part by the Federal Reserve quantitative easing practices. While reading it I thought of my father-in-law who has been fiscally very successful and came a long way in his life, and he has seen it all. He saw the post World-War II boom, the communist years of the 60s, the economic destruction of the 70s, the vibrancy of the 80s, and 90s, and the sharp decline of American economic power since the terrorist acts of 9/11 occurred in 2001. It would be important to note that the intent of those attacks was to shatter not just the symbol of American capitalism—The World Trade Center—but the actual economy itself. Now $17 trillion dollars in deficit spending later the picture is clear—America will not recover easily from this economic tsunami. When one does the math, if America spent all of the profit of its GDP for the next 20 years on reducing the deficit—it would not succeed. The enemies of America know it. Most people are vaguely aware of it—but they avoid naming it as thought by refusing to acknowledge its existence, a different reality will present itself. But it won’t. To illustrate this condition I refer you dear reader to Brandon Smith’s article—at least a very relevant portion of it. The whole article can be seen at the link below.
On the surface, the economic atmosphere of the U.S. has appeared rather calm and uneventful. Stocks are up, employment isn’t great but jobs aren’t collapsing into the void (at least not openly), and the U.S. dollar seems to be going strong. Peel away the thin veneer, however, and a different financial horror show is revealed.
U.S. stocks have enjoyed unprecedented crash protection due to a steady infusion of fiat money from the Federal Reserve known as quantitative easing. With the advent of the “taper”, QE is now swiftly coming to a close (as is evident in the overall reduction in treasury market purchases), and is slated to end by this fall, if not sooner.
Employment has been boosted only in statistical presentation, and not in reality. The Labor Department’s creative accounting of job numbers omits numerous factors, the most important being the issue of long-term unemployed. Millions of people who have been jobless for so long they no longer qualify for benefits are being removed from the rolls. This quiet catastrophe has the side bonus of making it appear as though unemployment is going down.
U.S. Treasury bonds, and by extension the dollar, have also stayed afloat due to the river of stimulus being introduced by the Federal Reserve. That same river, through QE, is now drying up.
While many people assume that the stimulus measures of the Fed are driven by a desire to save our economy and currency, I see instead a concerted program of destabilization which is meantto bring about the eventual demise of our nation’s fiscal infrastructure. What some might call “kicking the can down the road,” I call deliberately stretching the country thin over time, so that any indirect crisis can be used as a trigger event to bring the ceiling crashing down.
In the past several months, the Fed taper of QE and subsequently U.S. bond buying has coincided with steep declines in purchases by China, a dump of one-fifth of holdings by Russia, and an overall decline in new purchases of U.S. dollars for FOREX reserves.
With the Ukraine crisis now escalating to fever pitch, BRIC nations are openly discussing the probability of “de-dollarization” in international summits, and the ultimate dumping of the dollar as the world reserve currency.
The U.S. is in desperate need of a benefactor to purchase its ever rising debt and keep the system running. Strangely, a buyer with apparently bottomless pockets has arrived to pick up the slack that the Fed and the BRICS are leaving behind. But, who is this buyer?
At first glance, it appears to be the tiny nation of Belgium.
While foreign investment in the U.S. has sharply declined since March, Belgium has quickly become the third largest buyer of Treasury bonds, just behind China and Japan, purchasing more than $200 billion in securities in the past five months, adding to a total stash of around $340 billion.
The article may be dismissed by Keynesian economists as the work of conspiracy theorists but it is actually quite true in content. Power is being divided up throughout the world and America is not being considered a player in that effort. Rather the very rich, who already know of the coming crises have mostly sold off their investments in America so they can capitalize off its fall from power. Belgium, as a small country is suddenly interested in American Treasury bonds? This is no accident.
Sadness washed over me at the event for my father-in-law as the sun set on the horizon and the blue grass music played on and darkness shrouded everyone listening, and talking. The metaphor was a proper one, and soon in America what used to be clear in the light of day and taken for granted would be cloaked in darkness and difficult to see without assistance. The economic vitality that virtually everyone was taking for granted was coming to an end, and nobody wanted to know it—even though they can feel the chill in the air of a coming darkness in American history.
The economic collapse is a military strategy, not a purely fiscal accident—and every American celebrating Memorial Day should see it for the threat that it is. This attack is not with tanks and troops, but of quantitative easing and Treasury bonds—sold to Belgium of all places—and the chanting fools of old Europe who wish once again to take their homeland and make it the most relevant place on earth—once America is out-of-the-way and no longer in charge.
Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property – until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
For anyone who has read the Allan Eckert novels about the Miami Valley region from the period of 1750 to around 1800 you will understand why the following message brings great sadness to me. Progressives have attempted to claim the position of the Native American viewpoint, where shortsighted, pretentious, European settlers running from one tyranny to another brought with them to the New World a Victorian audaciousness that still persists among those who currently reside along the coast from Virginia to Maine. Those people pushed the Native American from one treaty to another across the settled continent of a wild frontier without a thought as to the long-term implications. Native Americans like Tecumseh fought to keep their land, but were pushed off for the proposed greater good—the European version of it—the same one that now desires socialism over capitalism. In those novels I personally identified with the Simon Kenton character most, Daniel Boone—George Washington and Andrew Jackson as close seconds. I understand those people, and their relationship with Native Americans was not so contentious. If left to Kenton, he would have been able to live alongside the Native Americans—he’d also own most of the Ohio River Valley—but that land was taken from him by snot nosed courts again in the European tradition of shortsighted consumption.
At the end of the road that I live on, thousands of Native American hunters traversed by canoe from their settlements near Xenia, Ohio down to the hunting lands of Kentucky exploring the edge of the world between the river that divided modern-day Ohio and Kentucky from one another. Without question they often camped where my home is currently built as it provides a high vantage point overlooking the valley where Trenton currently resides. It was good hunting ground with topography suitable for feeding a small army, which the Native Americans often had. My ancestors during this period were given land by the King of England right in the heart of Liberty Township and was part of the frontiersmen that settled the area as the French were partnering up with the Native Americans from the Eastern Lake Erie region—specifically Pontiac and his people the Ottawa who went on a bloody crusade against the English settlements which lead to the French and Indian War. The Treaty of Greenville took place right up the road from my house, and the Battle of Fallen Timbers right up the road from there. Few people have any idea what kind of massacre occurred at the current town of Piqua, Ohio. Even fewer these days know why Fairfield, Ohio was called what it was, or that Hamilton, Ohio was named after the Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, or that Monroe, Ohio was named after a sitting president. Fewer know that Liberty Township, Ohio was a direct tribute to the American Revolution and that it was the wild frontier that defined America, which is why Trenton, Ohio was so aptly named after the decisive victory of Washington after crossing the Delaware with his troops to deal a stinging blow to the English forces entrenched in New Jersey.
I grew up knowing long time residents who owned vast swaths of land, much the way the modern Niedermans do. And over the years I have watched them forced off that land because of high taxation. During the last levy campaign from Lakota, the public school that infests the region with government style education that is too expensive, too liberal, and severely inefficient, the most vocal supporters—the real-estate agents who want to sell houses declared that if people didn’t like the way the world was changing, under their guidance—that they should just move. Those same idiots claimed to love Liberty Township and West Chester for the large plots of farmland and green space—yet they brought with them a temperament that wanted to see a home placed on every acre—and those same real-estate agents who most fervently supported the Lakota Tax Increase of 2013 had the attention span of a flee—not considering what the long-term implications of their hostile behavior might lead to.
I know many of the developers who built the houses in Liberty Township and they have in common among them a lack of scope. Their primary concern, much like the levy supporters at Lakota was in protecting their investments without an understanding of the long-term implications of their decisions. They worked with real-estate agents to use Lakota to sell away most of the Liberty Township land to small-minded East Coast progressives transferring to the region because of the solid job growth of the Tri-State area. Most of those people move to the area not because of the deep history but because of the green space. But with each tax passed, the farms have packed up and moved away leaving the land to be divided up and sold away to more progressive minded newcomers who love taxes, government, and someone else being in charge of their life because they are simply too lazy—or unsophisticated to do it themselves. I have seen more letters than I care too like the one below spawned from the latest Lakota levy.
Hi Rich, just wanted to write and let you know we’re leaving West Chester. I fought with you to help defeat the levy each time, but this last time I said if it passed we were leaving. So, we are moving. Don’t get me wrong, I know the levy system will follow us, but we are moving to a place where we can spread out in our own forest land, but our taxes on over 10 acres will be lower than our small lot here in West Chester. The schools have continued to increase teacher salaries as you said and I continue to be disgusted by the indoctrination of our school children and the parents who refuse to believe what is being done to their children. I will continue to follow your blog and will stand with you on the conservative issues we face, but will no longer do it from West Chester. Gods speed.
A frequent Reader,
What is the cause of urban sprawl for those conservation minded idiots of the green movement? Taxes. If one wished to drive north, west, or east of Liberty Township just 30 miles, they will discover many people like that letter writer who is willing to move away from neighborhoods, public schools, and high taxes in favor of more land, more space, and less nosy progressives. It is the same tendency that caused Simon Kenton to settle the area in the first place; he wanted to be away from the nosy politics of the East. The Native Americans already living somewhat of a free existence, certainly didn’t want to deal with the newcomers either. And today, I feel the same way.
If there are lessons to be learned from history it’s that the idiots never stop coming. You can pack up and move away from them, but within a decade or two they will be back on your doorstep looking for money, and trying to find ways to get you to care for them and their children because they are too stupid and lazy to perform the task on their own. They’ll arrive with great pretension and speak often about the “greater good” but what they really want is for you to carry them through life. They want you to care for their kids; they want you to start a tractor so they can see it driving around while they go to Panera Bread, and they’ll cry about green space when you leave because of high taxes, and they’ll call the developers who built homes in the wake of the surrendered property greedy. Local politicians lick their lips with each home sale like insects caught in the web of a spider. For every lot of land divided up from what once was a large field of corn, or a former Native American campground, is now a quarter acre money-maker that pays $2000 to $6000 in taxes per year divided 50 to a 100 ways as opposed to the former plot of land of 10 acres that paid only a fraction of that, until the surrounding neighborhoods changed the taxation structure giving politicians money to spend and ways to name things after themselves.
It is truly a loss when someone of quality leaves a community like Liberty Township and 50 fools move in to replace them—and that is what is happening. Some call it progress—those would be progressives. Some call it the wave of the future. Some call it inevitable. Some call it the legal way of providing a future for the next generation through education funding. But I call it stupid and unsustainable. For every person of quality who leaves Liberty Township and West Chester because the Lakota school taxes are too high, thoughtless migrants replace them as much lower quality people who will inevitably destroy the property values of everyone involved, not just a few. There is no way to run from stupidity. Because stupid has no choice but to suck the life out of everyone they come in contact with and expect others to pay for their deficiencies with high taxes and parasitic indulgence.
My friends at Nostalgic Ink in Mason, Ohio promised that they would have a Tantive IV Blockade Runner for my upcoming game with X-Wing Miniatures—the popular new tabletop game featuring Star Wars dog fighting tactical strategy. I checked around lunch on Thursday the 22nd and the store sorrowfully told me that their truck had not yet arrived with their deliveries. But they informed me a few hours later that it had arrived, and I promptly drove my motorcycle back there to pick it up. They had it waiting for me behind the counter and for a $100 dollars, it might have been one of the most glorious things I can remember beholding my eyes upon. My next thought was how I was going to get that package home on my motorcycle—because it was so big. You can see it in the picture below.
As much as I dislike progressive politics, a failed teaching system world-wide, socialism and all forms of statism my first love is not politics or even conservativism—but mythology. I am not a huge supporter of group behavior and love my independence, but there are a few groups I support, and one of the organizations I have the most reverence for is the Joseph Campbell Foundation. My love of mythology is my number one enjoyment without there being a close second. My love of the Star Wars Miniatures game, X-Wing has a deep history in the old X-Wing computer games I used to play with my nephews all hours of the day for entire weekends. Many times we had to run missions against those Corellian Corvettes and they were at times, very difficult—which is why I still remember them 15 years later. The wonderful people at Fantasy Flight Games have found a modern—low tech way of re-inventing the great mythological storytelling of that old video game with new gorgeously detailed models that really make modern mythology come alive in that game. That’s why I love Nostalgic Ink and many of the people who frequent those places. Likely they wouldn’t agree with me on my views on modern education, politics, drugs, and even traditional values—but they love the mythology evoked in many of the tabletop games sold in that palace of thought—giving us common ground.
But Star Wars isn’t just about spaceships and fantasy as I have elaborated often. It is about modern mythology and the perpetuation of goodness and as I have stated—the filmmakers of the series and the people at Disney now behind it—wish very much to use mythology to be a force for good in the entire world. I have said it many times, there isn’t anything happening in the world right now that will eclipse the good work that will come from the Star Wars partnership with Disney. The first traces of this attempt at goodness through mythology can be seen in the J.J.Abrams message below while on the new Star Wars set for the seventh film. The video was posted on May 21st and by the time I picked up the Tantive IV at Nostalgic Ink it had seen nearly 2 million views within that 24 hour span on YouTube. There isn’t a government on earth or organization anywhere that has the kind of ability to reach so many people. Star Wars advocates itself to be a force for good by advocating a force for change. The change they are talking about in the video is not silly progressive politics for the sake of social alliances—but real, genuine change born from human innovation to benefit all of humanity with the gifts of creativity.
Star Wars: Force for Change wants to create a brighter tomorrow for thousands of kids and families around the world. With your help and creativity we can develop innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. By acting as a Force for Change, your contribution to support UNICEF’s Innovation Labs and other innovative work for children will fund dozens of life-changing projects like these in communities across the globe: • Portable, solar-powered learning kits being built-in China, Uganda, and Burundi to ensure underprivileged children in these countries have access to relevant, high-quality educational materials. • Mobile phone application developed in South Sudan and Uganda, and used in the Philippines, that helps reunite children with their families after an emergency. • A text messaging solution in Zambia that helps families receive infant medical test results from clinics, in half the time, through mobile phones. Join us! Help create a brighter tomorrow for thousands of kids and families. Be a force for change.
Immediately following that message Lucasfilm sent me this press release which did not surprise me at all. As much as I have raved about Gareth Edwards after his spectacular work directing the new Godzilla movie he was named as the new director of the first Star Wars standalone film—staring either Han Solo or Yoda—likely the later. This to me was tremendous news as I had been saying that Disney was positioning Star Wars to be more than just a huge money-maker for their company—but again, a force for good by using mythology to reach behind political ideologies to get the human race pointed in the right direction. The hiring of Edwards and his response to the alignment I think will have a major impact on the mythmaking experience and the results on a worldwide audience.
Gareth Edwards and Gary Whitta Onboard for Star Wars Stand-Alone Film
May 22, 2014
In addition to the episodes of a new Star Wars trilogy, Lucasfilm and Disney have begun development on multiple stand-alone movies that will offer new stories beyond the core Saga. Gareth Edwards will direct the first stand-alone film, with a screenplay by Gary Whitta. The film is due out December 16, 2016.
Gareth Edwards blazed into the filmmaking forefront with his acclaimed work on Monsters, a film he wrote, directed and served on as cinematographer and visual effects artist. The skill and vision readily apparent in Monsters earned him the high-profile spot directing this year’s smash hit Godzilla.
“Ever since I saw Star Wars I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life — join the Rebel Alliance! I could not be more excited and honored to go on this mission with Lucasfilm,” said Edwards.
Gary Whitta’s screenwriting credits include 2010’s The Book of Eli starring Denzel Washington. He is also well-known as a journalist and editor in the video game industry, as well as part of the BAFTA award-winning team on Telltale Games adaptation of The Walking Dead.
Whitta states, “From the moment I first saw the original movie as a wide-eyed kid, Star Wars has been the single most profound inspiration to my imagination and to my career as a writer. It is deeply special to me, so to be given the opportunity to contribute to its ongoing legacy, especially in collaboration with a film-maker as talented as Gareth, is literally a dream come true. I’m still pinching myself.”
So there was a lot to be excited about this week, and especially over the last 24 hours. Through all the years that I have been a member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, George Lucas—the creator of Star Wars—has been on the advisory board so that he could help guide teaching mythology to a new generation. People like me and Edwards are the obvious benefactors. Edwards makes a living from his education in mythology, where I use mine in real world application—both I would consider equally important. If there was ever a man who deeply cared about the direction of society in a positive way—in a way that Walt Disney did—it is George Lucas. Through his deep commitment to mythology he not only produced films like Star Wars which take story telling to powerful new places—but inspired through the Joseph Campbell Foundation to teach a new generation of filmmakers like Gareth Edwards and J.J. Abrams to take movies to places that Lucas and Steven Spielberg could only dream of. Even small little companies like Fantasy Flight Games in Minnesota are helping advance a mythology that literally touches every corner of the world with messages advocating goodness through their table top game X-Wing Miniatures. As for the Force for Change campaign mentioned by Abrams, that is something I can certainly support. I could care less about being in the new movie, but I do care deeply about the advancement of goodness throughout the world, and there isn’t any vehicle anywhere but Star Wars with Disney at its back that has the power to pull it off. It is for those reasons that the new Tantive IV by Fantasy Flight Games is one of the neatest things I have ever seen for the price of $100.
The Tantive is just a model, but it’s what it represents that matters. It is a force for change that leads to good—and that makes it wonderful and worth pursuing on the cusp of a wave that is hitting the world in very positive ways.
It took me a few weeks to get around to it, but I finally had the opportunity to watch the new documentary by my old friend Doc Thompson featuring the origins and validation of the TEA Party movement which began during the Bush administration and exploded under President Obama. Now 14 years of deficit spending that is a train wreck in American history the TEA Party has risen as a direct response to the irresponsible nature of government. The documentary is very good and even better, it is free. Doc and his producer Skip LeCombe put a lot of effort into the enterprise and are offering it for mass viewing. They are asking for donations, but the heartfelt documentary can be seen in its entirety at the following link:
Written and produced by Matt Roman, along with Doc Thompson and Skip LaCombe, Intolerable was released on Tuesday May 6th featuring original music and material marking the inaugural project of File 55 Productions. It was an ambitious effort that certainly caught the eye of Glenn Beck and was featured on his radio show.
Glenn had been encouraging his audience to stop thinking and start acting when it comes to following through on various passions and projects. The Blaze Radio Network’s Doc Thompson and Skip LaCombe personified that advice.
Glenn asked Doc and Skip to talk a little bit about the purpose of the documentary.
“You know the misconceptions about the TEA Party that’s been pushed out there. I got really frustrated after our tour, and I said, ‘Let’s tell the truth about the TEA Party, so people can share it and save their friends and neighbors,’” Doc explained. “[That] is what it really is: It’s good, hard-working Americans that share your same values… You’re going to watch this. You’re going to get good information. And you’re going leave feeling good. You’ve going to have some direction for the future.”
“We offered it for free because we want as many people to see it as possible, but we’re also capitalists,” Doc said. “And then from here, some of the donations we get, we’re going to put the money toward a whole lot of other projects that we have rolling out. We have about 15 things we’re going to do in the next couple of years… We’ve got a bunch of good stories.”
As I watched the film I thought back in time a bit and remembered how the Republican Party tried to cozy up to me during this TEA Party rise. Actual candidates and the people who finance them expected me to be pulled into their web. The Republicans rode the wave of the TEA Party making it their own, and around 2012 turned on it all together. The establishment began taking drastic steps into the other direction, back toward the progressive middle. I remember well the difficult conversations I personally had with high level local Republicans in my town who hoped and prayed that I would play along nicely—which of course I didn’t.
Of course this is how they play the game in Washington and why people like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are such bad people—at least as politicians. They talk tough on the stump speeches, but behind the scenes, where the money gets raised—it’s a different story and they expect that the friendships established will make good people overlook bad things for the good of the Party. TEA Party supporters of course didn’t go for this and stood against the establishment which is the cause of a kind of civil war in modern America. The result is that only the strongest people of the TEA Party movement are still actively involved. Gone are the crowds shown in Doc’s documentary, but we all knew even back then that the momentum would not last.
My personal crises came as Judge Napolitano was pulled off the Fox Business Channel, and my friend Doc Thompson was fired from 700 WLW radio within days of each other. Doc was being attacked for his beliefs and the company he was working for hid the termination behind a ratings drain—which wasn’t the case. And my Republican friends wanted to pull me into their world of charity events and careful politicking that was sensitive to progressive issues—which I personally have no sympathy for. I made my stand, pissed off a lot of people and relationships were fractured forever. When the smoke cleared, I was still a TEA Party supporter and my friends were left without the benefits of my friendship. It was foreign to them that a man would stand on principles and that realization made me very angry.
Many people have pointed out that my articles from the start to the present have changed over time. I can understand that. In the beginning I had hope for people like Governor Kasich, Governor Christy, Paul Ryan, even John Boehner—but after just a few years, they have all failed to hold their moral ground. They proved to be a lot of talk, but way too willing to make a deal just to stay in power. I have watched the NDAA get passed in the middle of New Years Eve, and watched Obamacare shoved down people’s throats. I have watched the Justice Department commit crimes and get away with it because they are the law. With each story, my hope for the preservation of the system as it is currently has evaporated. So the tone of my articles has evolved with that sentiment.
Doc Thompson could have just given up after he was terminated from 700 WLW and his home station in Richmond, Virginia. But he didn’t. After a lot of fighting, he become employed by Glenn Beck and has excelled from there. Most people would be happy with just a gig like that—but Doc is taking things several steps further and this new documentary is just the start. I am proud to see the documentary Intolerable be released. There is a defiance in it that is healthy for America. Anyone who watches this film and thinks the TEA Party is a bunch of racist radicals is the actual villains of society. Nobody can watch Intolerable and then turn around and say the TEA Party is not the last beacon of light for the freedom that is unique to America—unless they are part of the undoing of it.
Doc and Skip did a great job of representing the TEA Party and getting to the truth of the movement and providing context to the rhetoric that is against it. It is a documentary that has been needed, and now it can be seen by anyone anywhere who has an internet connection. So there is no excuse to not see it. So watch it, learn from it, and spread the word around. Doc Thompson has done the hard work of making it. The least you can do dear reader is give it an audience.
For me, movies have always been a measurement about the temperament of a society in general. The kinds of films that make money, and those that don’t speak largely about the values of earthly civilizations. I enjoy most films, small art pictures like Atlas Shrugged sometimes because they don’t make much money and speak to a very focused and intelligent audience. I also like films like the new Godzilla movie which speaks directly to the masses with enthusiastic hope. What is different now as opposed to even a decade ago is that occasionally, huge blockbuster films like Godzilla are released simultaneously around the world and provide a very clear picture of what those worldly economic conditions are relative to the United States which can be directly measured by ticket sales.
Godzilla earned an estimated $103 million from 64 overseas markets this past weekend—during its opening. Warner Bros. reported that 51 percent of those sales were from 3D showings.
The movie’s biggest markets were the U.K. ($10.4 million) and Russia ($9.1 million), and it had the top opening of the year in Australia ($6.1 million). Other major territories included Mexico ($8.9 million), France ($6.5 million), Korea ($4.5 million), Brazil ($4.2 million), Italy ($3.6 million) and Spain ($1.6 million).
Godzilla opens in China in June, and then Japan in July. If it lives up to its potential in those two markets, it should wind up with over $400 million from overseas sales.
Produced by Legendary Pictures and released by Warner Bros., the monster movie reboot earned an impressive $93.2 million at the domestic box office.
Godzilla‘s domestic debut ranks second in 2014: it wound up in between Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($95 million) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($91.6 million). It also opened significantly higher than last summer’s World War Z ($66.4 million), and more-than-doubled Pacific Rim‘s $37.3 million.
To sum all this up properly just in the North American continent Godzilla made $93 million dollars. Over the entire rest of the world the film made $103 million without China and Japan being factored. Those countries will see the film over the next couple of months. With all politics removed from public relations jargon promoting all these other countries as equal to the United States, and the demand for Godzilla being universally equal all over the world—it could be observed that dollar for dollar—The United States—a capitalist country has the buying power of the rest of the world combined.
For instance, Brazil is a large country, but because they lean in the direction of socialism, they have a per capita income that is far below that of The United States. $4.2 million is about how much most states made in America displaying vividly that in Brazil there are not nearly enough movie theaters available to show the film. In America, I have around seven different theaters to choose from to see Godzilla while in Brazil, there may only be a few theater in each major city. The rural areas of Brazil are lucky to have power let alone have a theater down the road from their house making it impossible to even think of seeing Godzilla. So as a country, their demand to see the movie was high, but their people because they are poor did not have much opportunity to attend a theater. Even more pressing to the whole problem is that there is not enough per capita income to dictate that an investor could even open and operate a movie theater in the country. Italy and Spain are both socialist countries and put out a pathetic number in response to the Godzilla box office. Again, it is not that people did not want to see the movie. Those that could did. But in those countries, there just aren’t enough theater owners who want to embark on the entrepreneurial activity of theater ownership.
France put up a respectable number as they have several major cities that have movie theaters. In the future however because of the socialist policies of the current government penalizing the rich, there will likely be far less real-estate investment into movie theaters leading the country back into something like what Spain, Italy and Brazil are putting out as far as economic activity.
Economic activity is of course the access of investment into theater ownership and access to money to attend a movie by the general population through disposable income. If taxation consumes much of that income, then movie attendance will of course decrease. After China loosened up a bit toward western films and actually allowed their citizens to watch movies like Godzilla, they are usually good for around $40 million in opening weekend box office totals out of a population matrix of over a billion people. Much of this market base is around the capitalist region of Hong Kong, but the communist portions of the country are still deeply deprived of business investment and disposable income to even purchase a movie ticket. There are likely millions of children within China who would love to see Godzilla, but they can’t because no movie theater owners want to deal with the communist government to operate such things with all the restrictions involved. After all, China only allows ten films a year from America. The rest of the year there aren’t many opportunities to see movies that are good. China isn’t making many movies, and neither is the rest of the world. Only America makes movies like Godzilla and only a select few are allowed to be seen within a communist country. Godzilla will be one of them—thank goodness.
Here is a sad statistic; the entire country of Australia which is a large landmass, only produced $6.1 million in Godzilla sales—mostly on the east coast of the country. Australia has also functioned under socialism for a number of years which has killed their economic growth and the results can easily be seen in the terribly deficient movie theaters available. Obviously people in Australia would love to see Godzilla, but they do not have enough movie theaters to allow such a thing. They have not been friendly enough toward entrepreneurial activity to allow their people such a positive leisure time activity like seeing Godzilla.
Is it fair to judge the world against such standards—well, yes it is. Godzilla is the kind of movie that boys, girls, young, old, virtually every market demographic in the world would like to at least see, but those opportunities do not exist in countries struggling with socialism, communism, and over restrictive governments. Countries like Russia have at least stepped up to the plate and allowed for western films to be shown in their city multiplexes and they produced a respectable $9.1 million, just shy of England which boosts a much smaller landmass and total population. Such comparisons speak very accurately about the economic strength of the cultures viewing the film Godzilla.
Godzilla is s global phenomena built with Japanese branding for many years, so it is a stable platform to make such comparisons. And the economic status of the world is easy to measure against such a globally unified reference point. If you want to measure the strength of a nation, just look at how many people attend movie blockbusters and determine if they have access to a movie theater, have expendable income, or live in a country that allows the kind of free speech needed to see such a thing. Then ask why they can’t, and you will have the answer as to which political systems work best for the people they are supposed to serve, and which ones simply use people as a platform for their own self-importance.
I bet dear reader—that you had no idea that the new Godzilla movie told so many stories on so many levels—but now you do.