Tag: overmanwarrior

The San Antonio Shooting Nobody Heard About: Media bias and the battle of billionaires behind it

Why do people think that the media is selective in their coverage and agenda driven?  Well……….because they are.  For instance, just a few short days after the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut a gunman in San Antonio, Texas was upset that his girlfriend broke up with him and went on a shooting rampage at a movie theater—very similar to the Aurora Theater shooting.  The only big difference is that in Texas there was an off duty police officer nearby who was armed.  So when the 19-year-old Chinese restaurant worker started his shooting rampage in anger over his girlfriend, the shooter was shot by the armed officer.  The result of the shooting was just two people injured in the hospital—one of them the broken-hearted shooter.  The trouble is that as big as this story was—every bit as big as any other incident across the country and deserved the same kind of wall to wall coverage on the major networks that Sandy Hook, Aurora, or any other shooting received—it was only the local news around San Antonio and a few blog sites across the country that have discussed the story.  Other than those sources, the story has not received any “play” by the major networks which is odd considering the level of awareness that public shootings have been getting lately.  Watch the coverage from the local television affiliate here:

Yes, many of the stories that make the major networks are agenda driven.  That does not mean that the average reporter is privy to that agenda.  In reality, they may be unaware of the company agenda completely when they are first hired.  The agenda for a news organization is driven by the owners personal beliefs and as diverse as many think their news organizations may be, when it comes down to the original sources of an agenda driven news organization there are always only a few at the top who own everything—as it usually is—and all the reporters, editors, free-lance writers, even organizational management know what the parameters for a story are based on the kind of content their owners approve of.  News organization employees lucky enough to keep their jobs for five or more years learn that agenda and stick with it for the good of their own livelihoods.

In Cincinnati Scripps is a big player, as well as Clear Channel.  Gannett runs the Cincinnati Enquirer, and Cox Media controls many of the local papers from Dayton to Cincinnati.  When these organizations form up story topics they will give “play” to a view point—especially a controversial one if it gives them ratings—which is understandable.  This works well as long as the subject does not exceed the parameters established by management—following the guidelines of their ownership.  If a story fits the parameters set by ownership then the news organizations will give the story “play.”  If it does not, then the story will be canned—because no editor is going to risk their job covering a story that will anger their ownership.  The reporters who survive for many years in the “business” learn what the parameters are.  Those who don’t, find themselves removed in the RIF process. (Reductions in force)

CNN was the creation of Ted Turner the media tycoon from Cincinnati who set up shop in Atlanta, Georgia.  Ted married Jane Fonda in the 80’s as Jane was re-inventing herself after her long known associations with communism.  Ted although a capitalist, has shown many philanthropic leanings toward communism and obviously shares many of his ex-wife’s collectivist beliefs, which is reflected in the kind of stories that CNN has covered.  Turner as recently as 2012 stated on CNN that he believes its good that American troops are committing suicide because it shows aversion toward war.  Compare that to Jane Fonda riding a communist North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in the 60s calling for an end to American imperialism and you have a communist marriage made in heaven. These are the kind of people who formed CNN and really all the 24 hours news programs, with only Fox News representing conservative viewpoints.  MSNBC is even further to the political left than CNN openly advocating progressive causes with the company slogan, “Lean Forward.”  (Where have we heard that slogan before……….Hmmmmmmm)  Ted has given over a $1 billion dollars toward The United Nations, so it is obvious where his beliefs reside, and most of his companies reflect his political viewpoints—otherwise they find themselves unemployed.  And his companies are virtually everything that falls under Turner Broadcasting, which includes the Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT and TruTV. If you are a Time Warner subscriber, you send money to Ted Turner’s companies.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/10/25/Ted-Turner-I-Think-Its-Good-US-Troops-Are-Commiting-Suicide

Much has been said about the radical conservativism of Fox News owned by Ted Turner rival Rupert Murdoch.  It would appear that Fox News was created by Murdoch as a 24 hour news channel answer directly to the radical left leaning tendencies of CNN.  Much of the public relations action against Fox News on many networks including cartoons on Comedy Central are brown-nosing actions designed to earn the respect of Ted Turner’s money and funding.  Few know that Turner has a long-running grudge with Murdoch that originated in 1983 when a Murdoch-sponsored yacht collided with Turner’s boat during the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, causing it to sink 10 km from the finish line. At the post-race dinner, Turner verbally assaulted Murdoch, afterward challenging him to a televised fist fight in Las Vegas. In 2003, Turner challenged Murdoch to another fist fight, and later accused Murdoch of being a “warmonger”, as he was backing President George W. Bush‘s invasion of Iraq. [29]

 Even to this day, even though Ted is retired for the most part from many of his businesses, his loose lifestyle and commitment to collectivism can be seen in the way he socially conducts himself.  Like all communist and collectivist loving people seen best during the hippie movement in The United States, monogamy is not one of their strong suits—as liberalism advocates loose sexual relationships and promiscuity.  Even at age 75, Ted and his ex-wife Jane are involved in a love triangle with her new live in boyfriend 70-year-old Richard Perry.  (Imagine the sex antics when they were younger)  These are the kind of people who have had a huge hand in shaping the news coverage that comes into our living rooms in 2013.

http://www.showbizspy.com/article/255668/jane-fonda-in-love-triangle-with-ted-turner.html

In that context it is easy to see why CNN advocates gun control when it is The United Nations who most wants to see the world disarmed of all firearms.  CNN will pick stories that fit the old boss’s viewpoints because his money still speaks, and all employees at CNN know that if they want some of it, then they have to toe the company line.  So CNN will exploit Sandy Hook to push control legislation, and other networks will copy CNN because they are the trend setter.  But CNN and the rest of the national media will not cover the story of San Antonio where an armed citizen ended a gunman’s rampage because a private citizen had a gun and was not afraid to use it saving dozens of lives—unlike Sandy Hook and Aurora where the citizens were sitting ducks because they were unable to defend themselves.

So yes, there is media bias and it is quite rampant and driven entirely by human weakness.  The employees of tycoons like Ted Turner have no problem trading their journalism ethics for a pay check even if they disagree with Turner politically.  And people like Bill O’Reilly may never have had a shot at becoming the number one news guy on prime time television with Fox News if not for the rivalry that started between Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch during a yacht race in 1983.  Murdoch wanted to stick it to Turner so he paved the way for a guy like O’Reilly to have a shot at writing his own ticket.  John Stossel has done the same thing coming from ABC’s 20/20 which is owned by Disney and must adhere to the social positions of that very large media company.   Stossel left to join the Fox Business Network to have freedom over his journalism that he didn’t have at 20/20.  If Stossel had written a book like he wrote last year called, No They Can’t, which is an argument in favor of libertarianism, he would have found his job on the chopping block at ABC, but at Fox, he’s encouraged to do such things because Rupert Murdoch leans more to the political right.  Glenn Beck left CNN for the same reason to join Fox, and then create his own television network with The Blaze TV which is now on the Dish Network.  Thankfully for all of us, Glenn Beck will be the new Ted Turner and that will go a long way to fixing many of the problems our society is currently dealing with.  Look for these improvements to begin around 2020 lasting through about 2040 when Beck will be hitting aged 70 himself.  The big difference will be that such stories like those of Turner and Fonda won’t be happening with Beck.  The personality differences are one of personal quality and those attributes directly find their way into their companies.  All this news media is driven from a few minds that happen to be billionaires and their ownership of the news organizations and the employees who work for them are a direct reflection.  In Beck’s case he has a personal friendship with billionaire Jon Huntsman which helps keep Beck fighting along in a world established by the many billions of dollars spent by radicals like George Soros and Ted Turner to advocate social progressivism.

http://www.ftpress.com/promotions/promotion.aspx?promo=136175

Much of the news we see today is driven by those few minds, minds like George Soros, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, NBC executive Tom Rogers and a few others.  Everyone who works directly or indirectly for those people must form their journalism opinions around their bosses—just like any other business.

That is why the San Antonio shooting that occurred just a few days after Sandy Hook did not get any coverage except in the San Antonio news market.  National news is agenda driven by the minds that created the organizations and cannot be trusted at face value.  Unfortunately, the same people who create those organizations also contribute a lot of money into politics, so these same people not only influence heavily how Americans see the news, but also influence how the news is made in the world of politics.  Unfortunately, many of the minds mentioned above are radical left leaning progressives who want gun control, they want open sexual promiscuity, and they want a drug induced society—so the news we see every day is filled with stories that support these topics.  And it will continue until there is competition that threatens the monopolies of those ownerships in news organizations—and it will come.  The hypocrisy was accepted in the 1990’s and 2000’s, but the scam is out of the bag now, and people are turning away from those traditional broadcasts by the handfuls.  Stories like the San Antonio shooting will get coverage, and will be used to defend the Second Amendment against the wishes of old gun grabbers, communists, and hot-tempered yacht tycoons who behind all the money and power of their financial empires are still only people who breath, eat and use the rest room just like everyone else. They are flawed human beings at best, and their news reflects their ownership.

Rich Hoffman

“If they attack first………..blast em!”

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

The Hidden History of Social Security: A job for only the Tea Party to fix

 

When critics of the Tea Party point and say that they (the Tea Party) “resist everything, and are stuck in the past,” the context for what Tea Party members are weary of is never explored.  The issue of why they are against most new laws, every act of the political do-gooder, and insist on a return to American founding principles gets lost in the debate because more often than not the critics have no sense of history and are limited in knowledge to the shallow depths of knowledge in their own lifetimes. The more issues of governance is explored, the more evident it becomes that without a group of patriots who function not out of a love for political power, a thinly disguised grab for power, networking connections, or just a desire to be socially destructive, that politics in a democratic republic deteriorate quickly without such a presence.  There needs to a group in America that can use wisdom and a firm adherence to The American Constitution to keep politics as honest as possible.   Without such wisdom, without the prying eyes of a neutral party, all the well intended programs that government invents today become tomorrow’s tyranny, and now that there is a clear history in America, it is now clear that all laws created by government end up becoming monsters of self fulfilled destruction shortly after passage.

 

For proof of how slowly, and how destructive an idea created by government can become a social monstrosity, look no further than the Social Security system and witness the gradual erosion of that socialist oriented program which should have never of happened.  These things do not become terrors in one lifetime, but over two or three lifetimes, so many of the laws created within the last 20 years in government cannot yet be measured.  In that context, read the below history of Social Security, and take note of why the Tea Party is a needed–why political skepticism should be valued so that American politics can avoid a peril similar to the fall of the Roman Empire, the decline of English Imperialism, or the decline of Greek society.  The decline of American society will occur without addressing the erosion of moral order currently embracing The United States or a return to Constitutional principles.  And to date, it is the Tea Party that is committed to returning America to the formula that made the greatest nation on the face of the Earth over all of human history. Such a formula is valuable, and needs careful adherence.  So study carefully the below history of Social Security to see how quickly it became one of the most corrosive socialist programs the world has yet seen. 

Social Security Cards up until the 1980s expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes. Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, it became convenient to use it anyway and the message, NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION, was removed.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised: 1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary, No longer Voluntary.

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program, Now 7.65% on the first $90,000.

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,  No longer tax deductible.

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and, Under Johnson the money was moved to The General Fund and Spent.

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income. Under Clinton & Gore Up to 85% of your Social Security can be Taxed Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away’ — you may be interested in the following:

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.  

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.   

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the  US  

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.    Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it.

The same kind of distortion will happen with Obama Care, it has already happened with Medicare, and is present in every program that has the government’s name tag on it.  Now that the government created Social Security—which was an obvious—and costly mistake, they have tried to correct the error with more rules, which has only dug the hole deeper.  The only way to fix the problem of Social Security would be to reset the political system before the failure occurred, and this is what the Tea Party is starting to advocate in response to the many errors that are beginning to show up as these socialist programs are beginning to fail.  The position may be unpopular, but it is the desire to come up with a populist solution that created Social Security in the first place and has made it a mandatory program that is used for personal identification tracking and an extraordinary pay check contributions at 7.65%.  At the rate of decline that Social Security has deteriorated in just 70 years, it is obvious that 70 more years will lead to a total collapse of that particular program.  After all, the American demographic is changing.  People are living longer, the young people are not getting married at age 19 and staying married for 50 years like they did when Social Security was created—so socially the adult population of tomorrow will be much more unstable, and not able to sustain Social Security without it encompassing even more than the current contribution rate.  So there are copious amounts of evidence that Social Security will change much more radically in the coming years than it has in the past—which is quite a bit—because of the decline in social quality of the participants. 

 

Social Security is just one example of a program that started with good intentions, as it was a direct response to the Red Decade of the 1930’s push for communism, but quickly degenerated into a corrosive social element that most of American society is addicted to.  Stating that such a program should be abolished or radically reformed at a minimum is the task of scholarly groups like the Tea Party who are committed to education above radical protest and social unrest to move society in the proper direction.  But it will make factions of society very upset because many of them have signed their name behind the support of more programs like Social Security and if such a thing were ever abolished, it would mean that their lives have little meaning—because that is at the heart behind most new laws, small-minded men and women looking for a way to leave behind a legacy—a way for future generations to think fondly of their time on planet Earth.  That is not a good reason to protect a program that is functionally against everything that being an American is supposed to represent—self reliance.  Going against that current will be unpopular, but often the truth usually is.  But that doesn’t make the action invalid.  Instead—it’s quite the opposite. 

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

 

The Next Great War: Why America has so many guns–and it needs them

I’m waiting patiently for the revolution to start.  When it happens if I’m the only one fighting, that’s fine—but somehow I think that won’t be the case.  Once other people see one or two people resisting the encroachment of perpetual statism happening in The United States as of 2013, they will join like others have in the past during the American Revolution and the Civil War.  Whatever we call this next war within America, I will be one of the first to respond to the force that is sure to be applied and I can’t wait.  I love history and we are living history.  Now—before I elaborate, look at this next video and study the foolish position of the presented actors when the editor took the comments they made favoring more gun control and compared them to the kinds of films those same actors have made which feature gun violence.  The hypocrisy is obvious, but is done in this video with a comic flare that should be noted. 

 

 

Actors are paid to say whatever appears in their scripts.  If the script says to commit violence, they act it out for the cameras.  If it tells them to get naked and have sex with perfect strangers in front of a crew of 50 or more people—they do it.  And if the script tells them to come out against gun violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, they do it.  (Sandy Hook was a false flag by the way.  End of story—CLICK HERE for more.) So the opinions of these actors mean nothing—they are not leaders, or spokesmen for America.   They are actors who don’t have thoughts of their own.  They are like parrots; they repeat what they are told to say when they are told to say it.  I can affirm that from first hand experience.  Actors are not bad people, but they are not great thinkers or philosophers either—and are unqualified to give any opinions of worth.   They are paid well to fill a role and to not question that role. 

 

Guns are one of the biggest parts of American culture and that isn’t going to change.  The reason that the movies those actors play in feature so many guns is because Americans love guns.  Americans like to see guns shooting.  They like knowing they have them in their bedrooms.  They like plot lines that have guns in them, and Hollywood knows it—which is why they make movies that feature gun violence.  If Hollywood tried to change that trend, they would loose billions of dollars at the box office—so taking violence out of movies will not happen.  People are not going to pay $15 dollars a ticket to watch people talk about their problems.  They want to see stuff blow up, and they want to see heroes save the day with guns. 

 

Hollywood doesn’t really believe half the garbage that they advocate through donations to the Democratic Party, but they feed money to those statism monsters to keep the idiots from passing laws that will hurt Hollywood’s ability to make money.  Hollywood simply pays the troll by sending their actors out to give public messages making the statism advocates happy—which is why those mindless actors came out against gun violence, while they make their livings advocating it.  The message is just as hypocritical as a pornography actress coming out publicly in favor of sex only after marriage in a strictly monogamous relationship.  Her words are worthless because of what she does for a living. 

 

Guns are a fact in America and the enemies of American sovereignty are the ones who want disarmament for the same reason that it has always occurred—a potential for invasion and the capture of national resources.  There are enemies who want to control America both foreign and domestic and you can tell who they are because they advocate removal of guns from our society. For them it’s a tactical maneuver not a moral one.  For the global statism power grabbers using the United Nations as their personal army behind a façade of peace, they have no hope of pulling The United States into the global fold of power so long as private citizens have so many guns.  There is not a utopian desire for global peace by these people.  It hasn’t happened in over 100,000 of human development and it won’t leave the mind of man in the next 100,000 years no matter how pompous the progressive academics wish to believe such a thing possible.  The way to curb violence is with more guns, not less because the threats to our nation are not outwardly obvious, but instead devious. 

 

Just to put things in perspective as to why America is being targeted from across the two big ponds is that a potential invader of American resources must not only defeat the American military, but the American people also.  For instance if you took just registered deer hunters in the state of Wisconsin and assumed that each of them possessed only one gun each, their number alone would exceed the guns possessed in Iran, France and Germany combined.  That is a lot of guns, and it makes it very difficult for a military general to plan any sort of military maneuver against America.  There are enough guns in just one state to hold off an entire army from those three countries.  But states like Michigan and Pennsylvania outnumber Wisconsin in registered deer hunters.  There are enough guns in just those three states to hold off an invasion from all of Europe making a direct attack against America impossible.  So they are forced to attack America indirectly—through The United Nations with regulation, taxation, and treaties. Yet even with all the guns in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania a murder with guns is very rare in the Midwest.  It is only in the big cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and Green Bay where statism is strongest that gun violence is worst.  There are a lot of homes in my Ohio neighborhood with guns and nobody shoots each other when we get angry. 

 

I know for a fact that guns make a peaceful difference because I’ve seen it first hand many times over. I once took a bet to walk from Central Parkway to the University of Cincinnati up Vine Street back when it was one of the most violent areas in the city.  I walked the whole distance past drug dealers, hookers, pimps, and various thugs without a single act of violence against me.  I did the same in downtown Washington D.C.  I walked five blocks down K-Street at 3 A.M. then up four blocks to the north.  Along the way I passed one car that had been overturned and was on fire from violence that had occurred just 20 minutes before I passed by.  No police or fire fighters came until dawn when the thugs went to bed and the politicians traded positions on those same streets.  Not a single incident happened to me—because all the goons, the punks, and creeps who roamed the streets at night looking for a victim thought I was armed.  I wasn’t armed with a gun—because if I did get into trouble, I didn’t want the added complication.  But thugs know by the look in your eye that you are armed, whether it is with a firearm, or the internal knowledge that you can handle yourself in any situation.  That assurance is the key to personal and national freedom.  Americans know deep in their hearts that they outnumber the entire army of North Korea, Japan, China, Germany, Russia, England, France Australia or the entire continent of Africa, so they don’t worry about an attack from any of those countries.  The reason we can all travel to the mall and buy goods without worrying about a terrorist bombing routinely is because we have guns.  The reason that many companies wish to do business in America in spite of the extraordinarily high taxes is because we have a stable political climate because guns force everyone to keep on the up and up.  Guns keep our own military in line—making sure they stay on the side of the tax payers instead of aligning with statist power grabbers.  It is because of the gun that we are safe in America from all enemies.  Not just made up propaganda targets.

 

The domestic enemies in America are those who advocate gun control, because it is those people who wish to alter the American Constitution, and wish to disarm The United States to fulfill the wishes within The United Nations of global disarmament, and I consider that type of rhetoric to be an attack on my sovereignty within my nation.  Those power grabbing people will not go away—they will continue to encroach themselves upon our American lifestyle using every tragedy as a platform for their message of war through peace.  That’s what is behind the Hollywood message for gun control.  That is what is behind the entire gun control argument and those who cannot see such deplorable acts are naive—and sorry to say—stupid.   

 

When war happens, I will be there to fight for The Constitution specifically The Second Amendment—because they are coming after our guns.  They will use the IRS, the ATF, Homeland Security, local law enforcement, TSA, the FBI, the CIA, the National Guard to come after those of us who stand against statism.  The only thing that keeps war from breaking out right now is the knowledge that we all have guns.  We sit on the knowledge that we can defend ourselves should the unthinkable happen.  If gun laws are created that buys these guns back, or confiscates them entirely, that security will go away, and that is when the next war will erupt.  And when it does, I’m ready and looking forward to meeting many of you in person.  The country does not rest on the shoulders of some politician in Washington, or some 23 year-old girl who will take her top off for millions of people then lecture us about how we should support more gun control.  Our freedoms rest behind the barrel of a gun and are only as strong as the number of them that are in houses all across the nation.  When guns are threatened by domestic enemies, that is the start of the next war within the states.  The first fire of that war will be when authorities try to take those guns and learn the tragic result of that arrogant miscalculation. 

I’m with you Ted. It might be you me, and a handful of people, but it will be enough.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Lakota Top Story of 2012: ‘West Chester Buzz’ and ‘The Enquirer’ beg for food

If you ever wondered why our current government is so screwed up all one needs to do is look at the kind of institutions that instruct our society and study how they behave when confronted with trouble.  It is not hard to discover the root of the deteriorating rot that infests anything that is attached to government, and public schools are “government schools.”  They believe that they function outside the rules of reality because they live off of tax money which is collected on their behalf under force—and they fight over that money like dogs over a bone.  And their collective intelligence is just as proficient as the only concern they have is to fill their bellies so they can live five more minutes before they are begging for another bone.

In my local community of West Chester it has been well-known that I have spent the last couple of years fighting the stupidity of the blind tax and spend actions of the Lakota school district—which I attended as a kid.  Many, because I went to the school, believe that I should automatically support anything that Lakota does because I’m an “alumni” or something.  I hear the same type of ignorance from fools who blindly support their colleges because as adults they love the sports program—never connecting the dots that it is in such follies that many evils are conducted.  Those actions are forms of collectivism which I reject entirely.  At Lakota, they have refused to acknowledge that the cause of their funding problems is that they are like rabid dogs begging for food at the dinner table blindly hungry for more and more money to consume never connecting their actions to their hunger—as if the two weren’t connected.  Then to make matters worse, there are the apologists who try to sneak food under the table even when the owner of the dogs tell those apologists not to—because it makes the dogs even hungrier, and misbehave more often.  Such is the role of the local newspapers against the wishes of the taxpayers.

In the West Chester Buzz—a local arm of the Cincinnati Enqurier, they recently did a feature naming the top 12 stories of 2012.  Among them were the Mitt Romney rally that took place just before the election, and the announcement of the Liberty Way entertainment/shopping complex, which seemed like very reasonable community minded features.  But guess what number one was?  Out of all the stories that occurred in a community of over 100,000 residents over an entire year—can you imagine dear reader what the number one story was?    It was an article about Lakota’s budget problems featuring a March 12th article breaking down the massive cuts and layoffs the district had to make because of three tax increases that had been shot down at the ballot box, led by myself.  This article appeared just two days before The Enquirer did a “hit piece” on me personally to attempt to remove me from the debate—because nobody could answer the points I brought up. (CLICK FOR REVIEW) which goes a long way to painting a picture of the kind of diabolical schemes that go on behind the scenes of West Chester politics—of which Lakota is a major player.

It’s not like Lakota tried—they simply refused—just like Obama and the gang is doing now on Capitol Hill–to deal with reality.  They simply ignore any part of reality that doesn’t fit their version of it.  As government entities, they have their agenda, and their expectations—and they will only listen to options that fulfill their agenda—which is why they fail time and time again.  Have a look:

http://westchesterbuzz.com/2012/12/30/westchesterbuzz-coms-top-12-stories-of-2012-no-1/

In the course of early March 2012 The Enquirer decided to get into bed with the Lakota school district and the evidence is in their priorities of what they consider to be the “biggest story of the year.”  But nowhere is there any mention of “WHY” Lakota has a budget problem.  The article only mentions the result, not the cause, which is typical of these big government types.  The reason is because Lakota employees make too much money, and there are too many of them.  Pure and simple.  The education market is changing, there are many options that are better for teaching children, and government schools are clamoring to keep themselves relevant just as the Postal System is trying to stay relevant after the advent of EMAIL.  Public schools are trying to fulfill a progressive utopian vision of being the central figures in society, and the newspapers are obviously on board to help paint that picture—which is why The Enquirer has been losing readership by the droves and more and more people are turning to alternative sources of information like this blog, for their news.  People see the situation for what it is, and 18,000 people voted against the foolishness of the Lakota district, and the many thousands of tax payer dollars they have spent on public relations—to help set up articles in publications like The Enquirer and The West Chester Buzz. 

As The West Chester Buzz published their top story of 2012 article a levy supporter sent me an email stating, “No Lakota Levy seems to indicate that the teaching staff is paid too much and now the community is unable to afford such salaries.   I contend that the labor force is overworked and, for it to consider any further concessions, that group needs to be thanked for their steadfast service of the past and encouraged to work a normal 8 hour day rather than devoting hours of free labor to a district that can no longer afford such dedication.”  That statement, which the newspapers should be covering, cites the entire funding problem at Lakota, and in just about every government employee in The United States.  They have all lost touch with reality and have a sickness rooted in neuroses.  They simply aren’t working within the realms of reality—and therefore cannot be rationed with.  “Thanked,” what are these school employees—children?  Or worse—not even possessing the ability to retain information like simple dogs begging for food.

How can any sane person claim that an employee making 65K per year should not be expected to work 10 or 11 hours a day or more, and that such people are “overworked.”  The average income for Lakota employees is 63K per year, which is very good compensation, but the trouble is, it’s not competitive.  In the argument over what makes a good teacher or a bad teacher the public is supposed to take the word of labor radicals like the guy who sent me that comment at face value without validating the truth.  In my book his comment doesn’t even deserve a seat at the table because I don’t recognize his right to exist.  I have determined that the biggest problem in public schools is the labor unions who utter that kind of garbage, and there is no discussing anything with them.  They are like speaking to hungry dogs who only wag their tails if food comes near their mouths.  They are not the pinnacles of our society as The Enquirer has tried to make them out to appear.  They are simply parasites hungry for more government expansion, mindlessly higher taxes, and more youth seduced by all the wrong things to be cast out ill-prepared into adulthood. The labor argument in this case has a monopoly on education and the government backs that monopoly, and until that organization is broken up, there will never be cost reductions in education, there will never be improved test scores, and there will never be great leaps in social advancement.  The problem with government schools and their monopoly is the fact that there are no options for parents to have their child taught by ambitious teachers making only 45K per year over the one making 90K per year who is tired and beat up—hanging on till their retirement at 55 years old.  The tax money in the State of Ohio is sent to the school, not to the child, and that is the source of the problem allowing labor unions to basically control that tax money.  The system is ridiculous, and the press has not had the backbone to do their job—which is a disservice to everyone.

People say that all the things I’ve said above are “just politics.”  It’s just the way things are, and they will never change.  Well, it might be politics, but like I told one of my employers years ago, “politics costs money.”  If you remove the politics, you will save millions.  And the same holds true for Lakota and every other public school—remove the politics, and they will be able to balance their budget without being leeches on the rest of the community constantly hitting up the residents for more tax increases.  Lakota needs competition, and the press needs to get out of the business of helping to support destructive monopolies, which The West Chester Buzz confirmed is the role of The Cincinnati Enquirer in regard to Lakota.  For myself, and many on my side, the “labor argument” doesn’t even deserve a place at the negotiating table.  I don’t care what they think; they are no different then dogs begging for food to me.  They don’t offer a service I think is important, and they charge too much to provide it.  They need to be cut out of the money stream completely and that is my 2013 position.  Apparently, the media is going to settle for their role to be mere lap dogs, to the dogs begging for food at the bargaining table where the feast of West Chester is in control of the adults sitting at the table.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

“Good Cops” and “Bad Cops”: Becoming a Leathal Weapon for the freedom movement

Oh, it’s nice to get started on 2013. It’s wonderful to wake up in the morning and be free…………..

As the rest of the world is falling off the “fiscal cliff” I am feeling the freedom for the first time in many years to be able to fully speak my mind without being concerned about representing large numbers of people in my community. When I woke up one year ago on New Years Day 2012 Obama had just signed the NDAA Act, and I realized that things were going to get ugly, and the freedom movement needed to get down in the dirt and fight harder. So I was looking for a divorce—not from my wife of course–but from the people attached to me that wanted me to play “Good Cop” in the public debate against progressive radicalism. Nothing against those people connected to me but they had the wrong strategy against progressives. Instead, I saw the very real need to have a “Bad Cop” in the debate over public education and the many progressive intrusions on daily American life, and I wanted to be that “Bad Cop,” and I needed a separation from the old role to do it.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.

Being a “Bad Cop” is not the same as being a “bad guy.” But when dealing with people who have no understanding of their community imposition, of the tyranny of their collectivism, of their advocating gigantic government intrusions it is needed to have a “good cop” who will speak to the media and play the game the way progressives do, but there is a need for a “bad cop” to do all the things that the “good cop” can’t. Progressives have a lot of “Bad Cops” out there functioning fully, so the liberty movement deserves the same armament, and I wanted the role as far back as last year, primarily because the Lakota levy was gearing up for another try, and NDAA was signed into law.

The freedom I feel is similar to ending a job that one hates when you realize you don’t have to go to that particular building again and speak to all the people you didn’t like there. It’s like ending a relationship that was dysfunctional, but endured because of prior obligations. Once those obligations are fulfilled, you might be free to pursue another path leaving your mind free for the first time in a long time. For the last two or three years while representing many moderate personalities in Southwestern Ohio on issues raging from the Lakota levy attempts, to the Right-to-Work campaign in Ohio, to all the media contacts I had to maintain—I was constantly aware of what I said and to whom I said it. I had to be otherwise my ability to do radio interviews and get coverage in the newspapers and television would be limited as they tend not to cover radicals if they are on the political right—even though they do cover radicals on the political left. This left me always feeling like I was fighting a battle with my arms behind my back, and I was getting sick of it as 2012 dawned one year ago, only to see that government had a controversial new law that directly violated the Fifth Amendment, signed by the President on New Years Eve in the faraway land of Hawaii. Watching that progress it didn’t take long for me to realize that the liberty movement needed its own “bad cops” to counter all the goof-ball radicals advancing progressive causes at the expense of us all.

Now with 2013, I am free to act as I see fit without the burden of political correctness, which will be necessary to solve the problems that we are facing in America. I mean look at our dismal situation, a national debt of over $16 trillion dollars, a dysfunctional government, a communist president, radical teacher unions controlling the thoughts and lives of our children—and a whole slew of tax increases that will hit us all—at least those of us who already pay taxes. We are not in a good situation. Yes—I am looking forward to a very colorful year in 2013, one where I won’t hold back as much as I have in the past. Freedom feels good, it fills your lungs with copious amounts of fresh air, and lifts the spirit—and I am free to do what’s right without the restrictions of public sentiment. So to those who thought they had seen the worst—no, not even close. It’s time to shift gears and pick up some steam instead. It’s time for other people to play the “good cop” role, and its time for others to play the newly created “bad cop” role also. It is time to treat progressives as they have treated conservatives for years. The correct strategy with progressives is not with a pat on the ass and bribery whispered into their ears, but to treat them like dog shit that is found on the bottom of a worker’s boots. Starting in 2013, I have in my hand a scrapper ready to make sure the heel of my boots stay clean as I do my work. And it feels good!

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Review of ‘The Old Republic’: An Amazing Game produced in an Amazing Time

I had said that I was going to reward myself for all the hard work I did in 2012 and celebrate the first quarter release of my new book Tail of the Dragon.  Typically authors in my position might take a cruise to the Mediterranean, or schedule a few weeks in Hawaii to celebrate the conclusion and release of their novels but I had stated that I was going to do something different, I was going to invest in a video game that my wife and I had been eager to play for all of the last year, but didn’t have time–or to be honest–the machines to properly play them on.  Instead of an external vacation, we were planning to go on an internal one by playing the very involved MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is the latest creation of Bioware, LucasArts, and Electronic Arts with a production budget of over $200 million dollars.  The Old Republic MMO is the very latest of its kind following along the tradition of World of Warcraft, and the popular, Guild Wars.  MMO’s are very involved, all-encompassing, and can be very complicated.  There are a lot of computer calculations that are made per second with people from all over the world playing at the same time as you are, so they require computer systems that can operate at peak performance all the time, and that required me to make a major computer upgrade just to play for myself.  However, for my wife to play with me, it would require two supercharged computer systems, so after the fourth quarter sales closed on my Tail of the Dragon and with the help of my son-in-law, we built two specially designed, eight core processor, 75 Watt power-driven monsters for a few thousand dollars just to play The Old Republic which is very graphics intensive, and at times stunning to behold, especially if you love Star Wars like we do, enjoying the story lore with great reverence.

For kids who have grown up with MMOs–who have been over 13 years old since Play Station 2 came out, I think they are missing the wonder of these modern games.  I have read some of their reviews of Star Wars: The Old Republic before making my purchases, and I think they have the attention span of a nat.  Their expectations in the field of gaming are unreasonably high, which of course can never be satisfied completely by anybody.  Because of my schedule being as intense as it had been for many years, the only type of video gaming I had time for were X-Box 360 classics like Red Dead Redemption, Dragon Age, also from BioWare, and an old X-Box game that my wife and I loved to play together called Gladius, which was an RPG co-op–an early design that has obviously carried over into Old Republic.  My family, meaning my kids, my wife, and my extended nephews played Star Wars: Galaxies a lot, and World of Warcraft, but I never had the time to play with them, and found it irritating that most of the MMO’s did not have a way for players to co-op in story mode in the way that Gladius had, so I stayed away and my wife never invested much time because of it.  This problem has been fixed in Star Wars: The Old Republic, which allows two separate players to do just about everything together, with two totally different storylines—and the way that BioWare pulled this off now that my wife and I have played it for over a week both day and night is nothing short of a technical miracle.  For the kids who want the kind of story content available in The Old Republic, to go on forever, they are deeply unrealistic.  There is no video game on the market today that is as deeply story driven as The Old Republic, and everything is absolutely epic in scope.  For people like me who grew up watching the original Star Wars movies in a movie theater when they were first released, and had to wait almost an entire decade for the ability to watch those movies at home on a LaserDisk—well before VHS video tape or DVD’s, the work that has went into The Old Republic is a small miracle.

My wife is playing as a Jedi Counselor and I am playing as a Jedi Knight, and The Old Republic allows us to both play our stories in a co-op mode that is just stunning in its conception.  If all married couples could find something like Old Republic to do together, I think the divorce rate in America would drop off the chart putting many lawyers out of business—because the game is simply wonderful in its co-op play.  For instance, my wife and I got up at 5:30 AM on Saturday December 30th after playing the game intensely for 5 consecutive days, and we logged into the game on our two monster computers, each of them being cooled down by 5 internal fans just to keep the video card temperature down.  We logged off the game at midnight that same day and went to bed but were up again 5 hours later to follow the same routine on Sunday and Monday.  The story content is very intense, and every couple of hours of play there is a major climax in the action similar to most movies, where there is a plot driven introduction, a series of problems that must be overcome, then a resolution to conclude that portion of the story.   In one instance on the capital planet of Coruscant—which is absolutely stunningly rendered in the game—I had convinced a member of the Senate who I had caught doing a lot of double-dealing between the criminal underworld, and the people’s business of the Senate, to resign.  She offered me a lot of money to keep her name clean, which of course I didn’t take—just like in real life—and forced her to come clean with her resignation.  The Senator in question was not a bad person, or evil in any way.  She was doing what she felt she needed to do politically, but she had crossed the line and lost her way, and it was my job to make sure she stayed clean.  In the world of Star Wars that is the job of a Jedi Knight—a defender of the Republic from not just countless hoards of bad guys, but from the corruption that is indicative in politics.  Jedi are a great plot device that fills a need that is indicative in all democratic republics, such as what The United States is facing with unbridled corruption within politics.  Jedi are the stabilizing spiritual force that keeps everyone honest and reminds me of the kind of philosophical leader that Plato had in mind in his book The Republic.  The Old Republic as a video game excels at giving players those types of moral dilemmas every few hours of game play and so far, my wife and I have over 70 hours each invested, and we haven’t even scratched the surface of the sheer amount of content that is available.

The servers we are playing on were all full much of the time we have been on the game, so it looks like Electronic Arts strategy of offering a free-to-play option worked.  Lots of people are flocking to the game, and on the worlds especially like Coruscant, there were many people running around just like any major city.  They were everywhere, even in the most far-flung corners of that particular planet.  But my wife and I are subscribers and proud to be.  I saw that Amazon.com was offering The Old Republic for $14 dollars which will allow people to play under a preferred status.  BioWare is offering the game for a free download off the web site.  But I personally think they should sell the game for over $200 each, because it’s worth it.   The game is that good.  It simply dwarfs similar games that are console driven.  The computer programming alone to make planets like Coruscant or the space port of The Republic Fleet look so great is mind-blowing.   In fact, when my wife and I arrived at the Republic Fleet Space Port we were slammed in the face by the sheer size and scope of the place, the countless video advertisements, the street vendors, the sights, the sounds, it reminded me a lot of a real life Las Vegas where you can’t help but look out the window at the scope of creativity put forth by the human mind in the rows and rows of theme driven hotels and resorts.  Star Wars: The Old Republic is loaded with these kinds of bewildering scenes leaving many hours of discovery open to any diligent gamer.

The Old Republic is simply an amazing game that exceeds all my expectations and then some.  I was a tremendous fan of the previous two X-Box games called Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Republic II but The Old Republic MMO is in my opinion the best game I have ever played.  It’s also been the nicest vacation I’ve ever been on, and I’ve been on a lot of good ones.  My wife and I have been having so much fun that we forgot to eat but two complete meals during the entire previous weekend.  We were so wrapped up in what we were doing that we didn’t want to go into the kitchen to get food.  Instead we ordered Chinese and took 10 minutes to go and pick it up.   Once when our shoulders were getting stiff from sitting in the same position for about 15 straight hours we sat in the hot tub for an hour to loosen up, then we went back at it for another 5 hours before going to bed.  I don’t know of any place that a couple can go and have that much fun and be clean as a whistle, and still be deeply satisfying physically, emotionally, and intellectually.  The Old Republic has all the intellectual stimulation of a great novel, all the visual dazzle of a blockbuster motion picture, but all the strategic satisfaction of the most intense simulation games.   In fact, at times it reminds me of a favorite game my wife and I used to play when we were first married called Star Wars: Assault on Hoth, which was a board game of sorts that was a role-playing adventure similar to Dungeons and Dragons.  This was well before computer games were anywhere close to where they are now, in fact LucasArts biggest title back then was a game I played all the time on an Atari 7200 called Ball Blazer.  That should put things in the proper time frame.  She and I would play Assault on Hoth three or four times a week popping a bowl of popcorn and going to war together on the paper landscape.  Many years later we would introduce our children to similar war simulation games such as Wiz Kids wonderful Pirates series (CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW MUCH WE ARE INTO THAT).  So we are used to playing these kinds of intense strategy games as a family, and The Old Republic is simply every bit as good as I’m saying it is.  It is the pinnacle of the gaming genre to date.  There is nothing like it, and it may be a long time before something close to it comes again.  The production values that went into the game are unusually over-the-top and not likely to be seen again.  The cost to produce as much content as BioWare did with The Old Republic is just prohibitive.  That is an economic reality that few who play games understand.

I anticipate that my wife and I will stay on this vacation well into the summer, so if my readers here wonder why I seem more reclusive than normal, and difficult to contact, or to pull commitments out of, blame it on The Old Republic.  I haven’t turned on a television in over a week, and have only casually scanned news reports, so the benefit of the vacation has been effective in this case.  There are few things that could divert my mind as effectively as something so intellectually stimulating as The Old Republic.  It is a miracle of the modern age and I cherish every moment I get to play it.  It is worth the thousands of dollars I spent just to play the game and then some.  It is a lifetime experience that my wife and I will never forget.

As for those who wonder why I’m on this type of vacation and would choose to put my energy into this kind of fictional endeavor as opposed to something more, “real,” well, all I can say is that you’d have to read the great novel Atlas Shrugged to get the full idea of why I’m on this particular journey with my wife and not out there in the world building hotels, playing politics, or starting new forms of revenue.  In many ways, The Old Republic is my own form of Galt’s Gulch.  What I earn there stays with me forever—even if it’s just a memory.   It’s my memory, and one that I can share with my wife.  And to me, nothing else matters. 

Elections have consequences…….but they don’t force people to participate in a fools game, and that is what modern politics offers.  Atlas Shrugged was right all along.  The Old Republic is my personal Gulch and I’m thankful to have it.

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Carl Rullman for President: The Next Generation–Breaking free of the political left’s emotional hostages

As we watch the fiscal collapse of Greece, consider that they are about two to three years ahead of The United States in the debt crises–why, because public schools in the United States have been following a “global education” formula that is quite popular with superintendents like Lakota’s Karen Mantia. Watch the video below to see how similar the problems in Greece are to our problems in America over public education.

Carl Rullmann of West Chester should be President of the United States for what he said in regards to the Lakota School System floating the idea of a “permanent improvement” levy in 2013 that public schools all over Ohio are clamoring for due to dwindling state funding sources.  Carl said he would not support a permanent improvement levy in the Lakota district.  He said school districts should be spending their money more effectively, with the main focus on student learning—what a radical concept!  Specifically, he said “As a voter, I wouldn’t support a levy because the schools are in good shape; maintenance is an operating expense not capital.  Parents have jumped in and done things when busing was reduced and sports fees were raised.  There are plenty of avenues for kids to engage in activities in West Chester.  Schools are for education and teaching kids about the Constitution.”  Well said Mr. Rullman, well said indeed!

 

You can read the whole article about this issue from the Pulse Journal which goes into more detail and exemplifies the financial bottomless pit mentality that many of these public education advocates utter. 

 

http://www.pulsejournal.com/news/news/school-districts-delay-capital-projects-amid-shrin/nTczc/

 

Of course that article features a nice picture of kids playing on a playground designed to appeal to the parents who aren’t much older than the children they send to the school, who have not yet developed an understanding of fiscal awareness—since they barely know how to balance their own check books.  But the article wisely discusses how it will be up to parents to come together in PTA groups if they want to pay for things like play grounds, band electives and other extracurricular activities.  This sounds like a much better activity for those groups instead of sitting around each other’s dinner tables complaining about me, or camping outside of Kroger stores trying to smear my name publically.  They might even lose some weight getting up off their butts—which is good for everyone.

 

In the past education institutions have allowed private fundraisers to contribute to capital projects in small amounts to make the community feel like they are a part of the process of operating a public school, but have discouraged such behavior behind the scenes keeping the fiscal numbers low and uneventful.  Public education institutions universally desire increased taxes on property values for the bulk of their budgets because it fulfills a philosophical commitment that all public schools are dedicated to—centrally controlled education that is attached like a cancer cell to real estate values of a community—so that the school can use that relationship as an extortion tool when it needs funding increases keeping the government on the mind of all residents as an ominous authority figure.   

 

When a group I was involved in tried to give $10,000 to a community fund in early 2012 shortly after a school levy defeat the public relations megaphones went into overdrive to come after me personally.  When I tried to give the check to a member of the athletic staff at Lakota in front of the TV cameras of Channel 5, Channel 19 and the Cincinnati Enquirer nobody showed up from the school even though it had been arranged before hand.  I knew before the check was written that the school would throw a fit which is why I agreed to do it because it took away the emotional leverage that the schools utilize to extort money away from busy parents and would expose the hypocrisy.  It was after that event that I had a major melt-down with that particular institution which can be heard in more detail in a recent speech I gave.  CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.

 

I know that there have been attempts by community members to completely pay for the band activities, and sports programs with private donations, but Lakota has discouraged all such activity because they know that if the community took control of all those funding mechanisms that they would lose the emotional leverage they use against the community to garner tax increase approvals—so the schools have dug their own holes with restrictive, and unimaginative funding models.  I would argue that Lakota could nearly fund its entire $160 million dollar plus budget with donations and fees from the community that wish to send their kids to the school by-passing the tax revenue from the state completely.  There is enough wealth in the Lakota district and enough overly zealous parents willing to pour infinite amounts of money into their children that could fund everything and anything that Lakota would ever need.  But……………..the schools are not about teaching children, and this is the hypocritical reality behind the whole school funding mess–schools are about government control of local communities—and are designed to attach themselves to every home in every corner of the entire country linking us all to Washington D.C. in a marriage made in Hell—without giving us the opportunity for a divorce. 

 

I don’t want to pay for public education for the next 40 or 50 years of my life.  I don’t like it, I don’t respect it, I think it is destroying children, and I don’t want to pour thousands of dollars of my income per year into a failing institution—yet I’m expected to out of some yearning to care for tomorrow’s children.  Well, the parents are responsible for those children—I already raised my kids and my views are reflected in Carl Rullman’s quite effective comments.  He is 100% right, the schools are only tasked with basic education functions and should be concerned with learning about the U.S. Constitution, which of course is spit upon by the national teacher unions who are openly committed to global communism.  Those are not the kind of people I want teaching America’s future generations—so I view any money given to those organizations as a complete waste.  I wouldn’t vote for an operating levy for my public school either and I certainly wouldn’t vote for a capital improvement levy.  Instead, I’d like to see the supporters of those schools to pay not just the $5000 per year in property taxes on their homes, but $10,000 to $20,000 per year in tuition so Lakota can operate at the level they expect.  After all, it is they who want the service—I don’t—so they should be the ones to pay for that service.   

 

But common sense permeates in Carl Rullman’s words, and I hope that more people like emerge in 2013 to fight these kinds of battles that are sure to emerge on the backs of our communities children.  He has a lot more patience with the levy whores than I do, and he is a great voice for our community—and I thank God that he is out there in the world doing what I wish everyone did—speak his mind and resist the temptation to be everyone’s friend.  Sometimes the responsible thing is to tell people NO.  And in public schools, they need to learn what the word NO means—and the politicians that have provided public education with a gravy train of looted tax money in exchange for votes need to learn that meaning as well.  Thanks to people like Carl Rullman, educrats are hearing “NO” for the second and third time, and are beginning to understand what it means. 

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Who’s Responsible for the “Fiscal Cliff”: Most likely, you are

As the nation prepares to plunge over the “fiscal cliff” of 2013 with $16.3 trillion dollars in debt, and the promise of increased taxes on every American tax payer—not the moochers—the roughly 50% who do not pay taxes, but the actual tax payers who have their incomes taxed because they are productive; the finger-pointing begins as to who is at fault.  Well dear reader, I will tell you who is at fault—and I’m happy to proclaim it as I have made my own internal arrangements to legally avoid my tax hikes.  I will not stand for being robbed by the idiots who caused this mess.  I will not work harder to slave for the bad decisions of the people who are at fault for the “fiscal cliff.”  America is not a “good for one, good for all” kind of place.  I am not “connected” to the fools of bad thought, and do not feel compelled to help those who are listed below with the mismanagement of their individual lives which has caused the current crises.

 

The people, who are at fault for the “fiscal cliff”— not necessarily in the order of importance, are those who are willing to pay for their food at McDonald’s with a credit card.  It is the congressman who would rather play golf with the president, than to do the job he was elected for.  It’s the President of the United States who believes more in socialism than capitalism.  It’s the woman who puts her career in front of her family leaving the children emotionally bankrupt.  It’s the father who would rather watch Monday Night Football at Hooters with his friends than to sit at a dinner table with his family.  It’s the woman who is on her third husband in a decade, and on the man who just left his wife of twenty years for a 23-year-old girl younger than his own daughters.  It’s the idiots who would rather spend their Friday evenings getting drunk than reading a book.  It’s the welfare mother who just gave birth to her fourth child in 6 years by all different men so she can qualify for more government assistance.  It’s the over-weight fool who has spent 35 years overeating to the point they can barely get up off a couch then expect someone else to cover their medical expenses as they are perpetually sick.  It’s the teacher who lies to themselves that they are in the teaching profession to care for children when in reality it’s really for the money and the shopping sprees it affords them.  It’s the lobbyist who would sell their country up the river in a heartbeat for a lap dance at Archibald’s on K-Street while their wives brag to their friends about what “great guys” their powerful—well connected husbands are.  It’s the woman who turns a blind eye to her husband’s indiscretions in trade for diamond ear-rings on Christmas.  It’s the woman who would rather work a job so she can get away from the pressure of being a mother then blame her child’s failures on a public school.  It’s the man who sent his son to college on an athletic scholarship so that the boy can have a shot at professional athletics.  It’s the gamblers who are still at the slot machines at a casino at 3:30 in the morning spending the last of their weekly paycheck waiting for the buffet to open for breakfast which they charge on a credit card because they’ve lost all their money.  It’s the news reporter who slanted their stories to fill an ideology they inherited during journalism school; instead of using what their critical mind tells them is right.  In short, the people most corrosive, most destructive, most diabolical and the most responsible for the “fiscal cliff” are those who blindly serve an institutional system in some fashion or another, and have strayed from individual responsibility.  They are commanded by their social weaknesses instead of commanding their daily lives.

 

There are of course many more types of people who are responsible for the “fiscal cliff” and the moral bankruptcy that America is now in.  But the above description paints the picture effectively.  My view of those types is that they created their own problems, and it is not my responsibility to save them from their own stupidity with extra tax money—which is what additional taxes are really going to fund—more of the above behavior.  The problem is, until the above issues are addressed, America will always have a debt problem because the root of the problem is greater than money.  It is a rot of the human soul that the fools above seek to fill with material possession which skews all the raw data needed to solve the actual “fiscal cliff.”  I realize that the best way to teach America the hard lesson it needs to straighten out the behavior above is to let them fall off the cliff, and to plummet to a painful crash.  Only then might they listen the next time we come near a “cliff” of any kind.  Maybe then they’ll listen when people of logic and reason tell them to be careful with their lives and treat every aspect of living as a precious moment worthy of great care.  Because the debts of our society are a lot of little things that add up to trillions of dollars and the people who created that debt do not deserve to be a part of “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”  Such disreputable characters are not worthy of the honor to call themselves Americans when all they have done to contribute to the nation is debt.

 

Don’t ask me to pay for their bad behavior—because I won’t do it.  I realize that I just insulted most of the people reading this—but tough.  A thousand fools does not trump the brilliance of a creative individual who lives on the side of goodness.  Such is a problem of democracy and the demise of fools who seek to cover their folly by the good deeds of the few by force of the federal government and the armies of the destitute employed by their tyranny. 

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

Best Thing of 2013, ‘The Lone Ranger’: Memories of the “William Tell Overture”

As we close out the year of 2012, some might ask what I am most hopeful for in 2013—what I most desire out of the upcoming year—world peace, the resurgence of the American economy, or even the announcement that humans will colonize the moon and begin a manufacturing industry there. No, what I want out of 2013 is far better than all those things, and as was just announced, it looks like I might get it. Hans Zimmer has just been announced as the musical composer for the new Lone Ranger film that is being done by the same people who did the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and I am ESTATIC about all these combinations coming together in this updated western.


I have loved The Lone Ranger my entire life. I used to watch re-runs of the old Republic serials on TV with my grandfather as far back as I can remember. In fact, my grandpa—the one who taught me how to use a bullwhip, shoot a gun, and avoid detection from the law as he was a former moonshine runner–used to play The Lone Ranger theme song on his banjo in the kitchen while my grandmother made friend chicken and chopped potatoes fried in pig fat. The Lone Ranger may have been my very first memory as a child of about one and a half years old. In fact from age 1 to about 5 years old my beliefs of what a man should be was summed up in three heroic characters, Zorro, Popeye the Sailor, and The Lone Ranger. To this very day all three of those characters resonate in my daily life more than any other influence and it was that Lone Ranger theme song played on a banjo by my grandfather that rings in my head almost every minute of every day—and I love it dearly.


The William Tell Overture will always be a treasured bit of music to me because my grandfather pounded it into my subconscious and I will always adore him for it. In the darkest days of my life when things sometimes seemed to be overwhelmingly evil that theme song to the classic Lone Ranger westerns bounced around in my mind to always show me the light. And yes, like the Lone Ranger sometimes the fight against evil means that good men do have to wear a mask, they do have to conceal their identity to hide their loved ones from the harm of their heroic crusades. However, these days, I prefer the methods of Popeye the Sailor. I no longer attempt to hide, I just eat spinach and proclaim, “I am what I am and that’s all that I am.” If you don’t like it, take a hike.

But the William Tell Overture playing while the Lone Ranger rode his trusted horse Silver to fight against the worst that resides in the hearts of mankind is a theme I have always trusted and I imagine that Hans Zimmer will pay tribute to it in some fashion—if not, he is perfectly capable of inventing something that is even better if that could possibly be imagined. I am quite a fan of Hans Zimmer, so much so that the CD player in our car has been playing the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean and Dark Knight Rises for over a year now every time we get in to drive somewhere.


My new grandson is about three months old and I have been working with him teaching him the art of the bullwhip. He watches me intently but can’t yet grip the handle under his own control. He can only wiggle with enthusiasm at the intense sound it makes. I recognize that like my grandfather did for me, I will have to do the same kind of thing for my own grandson, and I will. The foundations are already set, and it pleases me greatly to think that good old Disney is reinventing The Lone Ranger just in time for my grandson to carry on a tradition that my own grandfather started with me. If I have it my way, he will be wearing a black mask, a white hat and riding around a white horse everywhere he goes within a couple short years. And he will be going with us to see The Lone Ranger even though he will only be 10 months old when it comes out over the summer. If anything, the little boy will at least register some of the images with the stirring Hans Zimmer score that is sure to be magnificent.

So 2013 will be good for me, you can bet on it. I remember like it was yesterday how my grandfather looked in a sweaty white t-shirt in an un-air-conditioned farm-house kitchen plucking away at his banjo the William Tell Overture as my grandmother slaved over a hot stove stirring fried potatoes as evaporated pig grease dripped from the vent hood. The desire to be more than just an average man, the desire to be a good guy fighting the destitute, the corrupt, the very epitome of evil was thrust into my mind with the banjo strings of my grandfather and those old Republic serials of the Lone Ranger and his trusted horse Silver.

I simply can’t wait to see Johnny Depp as Tonto in Monument Valley. The new Lone Ranger film by the makers of Pirates of the Caribbean and distributed by The Walt Disney Company has great promise to be the next great western in a tapestry of tradition that has been vanquished by a modern age more akin to the villains of the classic westerns, than the heroes who rode white horses and hid their identity behind a black mask. It’s a sad commentary that good men must wear a mask, as evil has far too much control, and it will remain so as long as villainy is promoted as merit. That is something the adults who raised me never stood for, and that tradition will be passed on to a new generation. Hans Zimmer’s new musical score will make my job thankfully easier when The Lone Ranger hits theaters this upcoming July 2013.

“HIGH HO SILVER–AWAY!” CLICK HERE FOR MORE!

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com

  

Gandalf for President: Glenn Beck talks about “The Hobbit”

By now everyone has probably seen for themselves why The Hobbit is such a magnificent movie, and why I have written so much about it.  Peter Jackson is one of the great directors of our time in that he took one of the greatest books and put it on the screen as it was written which was no easy task.  It is clear that The Hobbit is not just a movie like all the other entertainment options available at the theater, but is in a class by itself.  It is also clear that many of the people who made it are finding the Christian parallels difficult to explain away out of fear that they might not work again in film industry run by producers who have become like Smoug in the movie—sitting on a pile of stolen gold.  The dragon Smoug is drunk for power, which is the great theme of The Hobbit and it is difficult for people to see the movie and not see themselves in one of the characters.  A powerful story always has this effect and is the sign of a lasting mythology.  Those who don’t like The Hobbit are clearly seeing themselves as the villains of The Hobbit—they are like Smoug, the Orcs, or even the Ring Wraths who are trying to come back into the world from the land of the dead. The Hobbit covers within its story line all the various degrees of evil that can be easily seen in modern life and puts it into context—which is a great benefit to the minds of man.  Many however who see The Hobbit are likely to see themselves as the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins as Glenn Beck did when he covered this new film and its literary legacy over time on a recent episode of The Blaze TV.  The Hobbit is meant to appeal to those types of people and to provide them with courage as they navigate through the many evils that we all encounter in day-to-day life outside of books and movies.  For me however, I do not relate to The Hobbits very much.  They are way too timid for my liking—instead it is the wizard Gandalf that I directly relate to.  It is Gandalf the Grey that I understand and why I love the story of The Hobbit so much.

Peter Jackson like J.R.R. Tolkien understood that if he came out and overtly proclaimed that the messages in The Hobbit were essentially Christian that the other religions of the world would take offense.   Wisely, Jackson has avoided such comparisons during the making of the movie in New Zealand.  Even more remarkable were the various labor disputes that my readers here will recognize with my frequent articles about teacher unions in The United States.  The same type of radicalism is present in the film industry and it gets harder every year to deal with the increasing costs of making profitable movies as unionized labor has pushed up those costs to unsustainable heights.  This is one of the reasons that The Walt Disney Company is now picking up so many profitable properties such as Marvel Comics and Star Wars, because they are mythmaking machines, and have the revenue streams to deal with the labor unions through other businesses such as theme parks—for now.  But projects like The Hobbit to be as epic as it deserves has to be made as cheaply as possible—and it took the actors who played in The Hobbit to display a lot of courage to commit to these Hobbit films.  On top of that, the Tolkien family was split over the success of the Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films and wanted to dissociate with Jackson’s work.  Peter Jackson masterfully navigated all these production perils to tell the magnificent story of The Hobbit that can be shared with audiences.    Without question the son of J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher remembered the stories his father wrote for him to be much less action packed than Jackson presented  in movie theaters, but ultimately Peter Jackson understood that Christopher is not unlike Bilbo Baggins himself, and is prone to out-bursts protecting his father’s legacy as he remembered it.  So Jackson blew off the family rift to make the movie he envisioned anyway.  You can read about some of these issues at this link:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/7971185/Kiwi-actors-suffer-after-Hobbit-dispute-union

So it is a small miracle that The Hobbit was even made—and it is a larger miracle that it was made so well by so many people.  Actors know it is unpopular for them to play in a movie that is so obviously taking a stand on good and evil when the progressive labor unions they must join to work, and the other studios they hope to get work from are filled with progressive movie producers.  Being involved with a movie like The Hobbit will earn the actors respect forever from millions of fans, but they will have their work in The Hobbit held against them in future roles and most of them will not get “rich” off their work in The Hobbit, so they will feel pain from their decision.   The Hobbit will be blacklisted by the Academy Awards because of the labor dispute mentioned in the article above.  There was a lot against The Hobbit; there was every excuse for the film to fall short which of course it didn’t.

But the Gandalf in me sees a bigger work at play here, and that is that The Hobbit is so incredibly needed by our present civilization.  Evil is very much at work in our modern world and it rides the backs of progressives like Orcs ride the backs of those giant wolves in the film.  Evil works within the collectivism of the labor unions, it works mindlessly in politics, in religion destroying stalemates, in sheer greed, and many who watch The Hobbit and hate it recognize that they are one of the villains in the movie—so Academy Award snubs should be expected and considered a privilege.  The movie The Hobbit based religiously on the original work by J.R.R. Tolkien but upgraded enough to carry the mind of today’s youth, is about facing down evil and living to tell about it.  Without this confrontation with evil, the world as we know it will crumble away into nothing, which is the entire point of the film.

There are a mere handful of films over Hollywood’s history that do what The Hobbit has done, films like It’s a Wonderful Life, The Sound of Music, and of course Star Wars, that so accurately captures the hopes and dreams of our society and paints a picture that is so clearly understood.   The Hobbit is a special film because it steps up and over the many evil forces that desired with drool running down its mouth to stop goodness from being shown to a mass audience for the inspiration toward good that would fill the minds of millions with hope.  The Hobbit provides genuine assurance without the distraction of obvious religion to separate the mind from the contents of a powerful story.  It is in this way that evil finds that it cannot advance easily upon the minds of man—when those minds can see it coming a mile away, The Hobbit teaches in story form what that evil looks like and how it works so it can be seen in reality.  That is why I love Gandalf so much, because he is able to assemble all the parts of the story to work toward an aim to thwart the work of evil, even when those evil doers are his own friends.  Gandalf knows enough to protect himself with a simple Hobbit while he goes on his crusade on behalf of the good.  And now audiences everywhere can do the same.  This is why I most identify with Gandalf, and somehow I think that Peter Jackson does too.  Jackson might tell the public that he is a simple Hobbit, so that he can make his films, but his mind is like that of Gandalf—a master manipulator on behalf of a good that nobody can yet see—but only the wise master of all things, a mediator between Heaven and Earth and crusader for everything that is good, and an enemy to all that is evil.

Gandalf for President!

Rich Hoffman

www.tailofthedragonbook.com