Is this mainstream America? It looked like an episode of South Park to me, compare them below.
Who are these people?
This is what progressives have in mind for the United States? What planet did these people come from?
I took particular notice that the Ohio Education Association was promoting the event as well. And people wonder why I think Teacher’s Unions should be illegal in government positions. They openly endorse this strange mentality.
And what is Ed Schultz talking about here?
And again, when people wonder why we need education reform; listen to how much he talks about public education. Who in the world wants these types of ideas in our schools? I don’t. I’m a conservative, and I’m certainly not evil. And you bet we want to change this country away from what people like you have turned it to under our sleepy eyes. Who makes the jobs, Ed?
The good thing in all this is that hardly anybody showed up to this rally considering all the power that was behind it. That is because like the ambition in socialist governments is reflected in union membership, where a majority of the people functions like they are half asleep. They get their dander up when they want something, but once their needs are met, the go back to sleep like a baby sucking on the bottle. And that is what happened at The One Nation Rally. And with over 200 union organizations busing their members in, and a month’s notice, this is all that showed up. And the one’s that did were mostly asleep.
I would like to thank the people who put the rally on, I laughed hard for 4 solid hours at the display of comedy that was presented. Not at the effort of the participants, but at the level of seriousness for which it was presented against the background of what is truly occurring.
The 8/28 Rally much more reflected my view points. And it is nice to know that the people that went to that still represent sanity and American virtue.
Below, the 8/28 Restoring Honor Rally
You see all you progressive minded people out there, and this was reflected in the One Nation Rally, you have about as many fans for your cause as the WNBA does. And this rally reminded me of this Family Guy episode.
That’s what the crowd sounded like during Ed’s speech, which was the most energized of the day. Thanks guys, that was funny stuff.
The elemental issue, and ultimate tragedy of a life lived poorly, where one finds themselves cleaving to a measly income distributed from the public sector, is that they shatter when they discover how insignificant many of the beliefs they hold dear, truly are when they witness those living outside of their accepted parameters.
I recently received a comment from one of my many, many, many critics referring to me as wearing a tin hat, because one of my interests is in paranormal investigation. And of course the same fringe thinking will look at my 30 years of whip work in much the same discrediting fashion. The word they have for it is a kook.
This is because these small minded people have allowed their minds to rot, and their bodies have taken the shape of such thinking. The new rulers of these bodies are cellulite and they control the brain function without rebellion of original thinking. And to such cumbersome contemplation, my interests will seem foreign and even freighting to their standard patterns of accepted behavior.
And the reason this is a tragedy, is because they are content to be only a fraction of themselves. They are content to color in the lines that someone else drew for them, and will never have the satisfaction of creating anything original, or preserving a tradition that is rooted in truth. The cowboy arts are just such a thing, where Buffalo Bill, and Annie Oakley routinely reflected the politics of their times within the context of their shows. And such people I admire greatly.
But this is the age of progressivism. And in that age, individual achievement is frowned upon. Personal conduct is shared, and these feeble minds that have perpetuated this philosophy truly believe they are rooted in intellect. And it is in this thinking that any individual achievements, or any science that is not endorsed by these established minds, will become the subject of ridicule.
So it is with great pride that I listen and read the quips of my detractors. For when the politics is done, and the lights dim around our lives, I would not want to reflect upon the lives they lead, where they traded their very souls for a half baked idea, and a half-life reflected in their broken bodies.
Truth is sometimes revealed within established ideas, and facts sometimes come from places where established science has not yet been scouted by intelligent minds. And truth is also in tradition, which progressivism has sought to diminish any way possible. So to see anger from those factions, it rests my mind at ease that I am doing what is correct and true in the larger battlefield of human ideology. Even a cancer cell wants to live, even though they do so by consuming the body. And it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference. And such clarification allows me to see the cancer cells for what they are.
And for the cancer to take over our society, they have to minimize the immune system of our collective body in order to take command. So that means to encourage people to be weak, like Homer Simpson. Let people know that it’s ok, even endorsed to be like that beloved cartoon character, that being human is laced with fault, and that is actually an enchanting quality.
It is not surprising that similar personalities as the tricksters featured in these videos will look to anyone that displays talent or a hunger for knowledge outside of the orthodox because such types are a serious threat to their ideology. And that ideology is an immature and shallow field of endeavor much coveted by those great equalizers dressed in sheep’s clothing yet finding it difficult to conceal their canine teeth.
So it’s fine for those demagogues to cast assertions of despair in my direction. For to them, everyone that is not a Homer Simpson is someone that must be brought down by any means available.
But it won’t be enough………………………because I’m not a Homer.
I have said a lot about education, and the danger of institutional behavior. But this is not intended to further analyze that issue. This is to cover the Lakota School Levy which is on its second attempt in 6 months and promises to be a particularly bloody fight this time around.
So let me set the stage:
The teachers have just agreed to a pay freeze under a union contract that took months to arrive at. The districts developers are looking at a tanked economy where many, many properties are left without tenants to support the tax requirements. The public in general are also feeling the heat of the recession, which after the smoke clears in historical context, is probably a legitimate depression, and many are barely hanging on to their homes as they are victims of the housing bubble. Lakota has been around a while, so there are a large number of senior citizens in the district that are on fixed incomes and without children in the district, and their charity is strained to a breaking point. There is a governor in Strickland that is a big government guy, who is tight with labor unions as his base support, and is very close to the president of the United States, who shares much in common with Ohio’s governor. To both men, Ohio is a battle ground state where much is at stake politically and the nation is watching closely. And in that context, Lakota is the 7th largest school system in the state. It is Ohio’s largest “Excellent” district nine years running with distinction two years in a row.
I contemplated this heavily while practicing in my back yard.
And it really is that simple if you take the emotion away.
The opponents of the levy have joined together, with myself being in that category. We’re against it for all different reasons. Mine are that I see the school system displaying the same types of problems we have in government, where accountability is hard to come by, and everything is fixed by spending more money. And the school government is so big; it’s folding over its own weight financially.
The Pro Levy people are typically residents that have children in the school system, and many of them moved to the district because of the schools. And they are threatening to move if the levy fails to a district that supports levies. The rest of the supporters are employees of the school system in some way and of course they are concerned about the passage of the levy for their own financial stability.
I listen to the values of the school system and the things they are proud of, like a 90% college attendance rate, a graduation rate of 94.7%. A student attendance rate of 96.5%. During 2009-2010 there were 11 National Merit Semi-Finalists. There was 1 Presidential Scholar in 2008. They operate at a spending rate per pupil of $9,503 while the State average is $10,253, so on paper, everything sounds profitable.
But to my thinking, all those statistics are a smoke screen. All the attendance stats are to the credit of the parents, who obviously care enough about their children to buy a home in a great school district, so naturally, those kids will go to college, attendance will be great, and there will be national honors in a group that has parents that takes education seriously. And while it is commendable that the school district does operate under the average, it does not question whether or not $9,000 per child actually translates to true excellence. It doesn’t take much to poke holes in the aspects of their public service that they take pride in; because most of the merit is simply items they are taking credit for. In fact, I think it is cowardly, to ride on the back of exceptional students, and caring parents, in order to secure funding for an institutional giant that serves as a catalyst for a powerful union.
That is the beginning of the problem. Over the years, the Lakota Education Association has grown in power and influence, and this of course leads to the overall problem of political backing of the National Teachers Union which is an organization that I don’t wish to endorse, because the money given to this organization often goes to political agenda’s that I do not support. Judy Buschle, who just recently announced she was stepping down as the LEA President, has served as the Ohio Education Association board of directors and the National Education Association Resolutions Committee and is a particularly powerful influence locally, and has successfully negotiated many contracts with a bewildered Lakota board of education committee and lap dog superintendants obviously intimidated by the power of the LEA. In fact, Buschle has been so successful, that the average wage for a teacher at Lakota is $59,000 without any further benefits considered. And I make that assessment by attending a school board meeting. I did so after the last levy failure to see if my opinion of the whole situation had been wrong. I left that June meeting utterly disgusted. The board was completely outmatched by the union presence. Don’t believe me, watch the tape. They film it and have it available for you to judge. The union people including Mrs. Buschle sat right behind me and were absolutely disrespectful during the meeting. It was so bad that a parent took the podium and shouted down the union people, blaming them for the anger from the community as to why the levy failed in May. I left that meeting realizing that everyone in the administration was over their head with the size of the problems they were trying to solve, and the union controlled everything. So there wasn’t anything they could tell me that would earn my vote until they made serious changes to their leadership structure and outside influence.
If you’re like me, a person that loves traditional American values, small government, and is suspicious of institutional influence, it is not an option to indirectly supply money to an organization that will then support a governor like Ted Strickland, or a President like Obama. Even if I did want to give money to the school, because I don’t want my money indirectly converted to union support for a politician that will then in turn come after the way of life that I personally value. The presence of the powerful union creates a barrier between a person like me, and the school system that I value because I disagree with the philosophy of that union and the politics they represent. They certainly have a right to exist, but not from the funding of my tax dollars.
The indirect nature of course comes from the union dues of the teachers, which are paid with our tax dollars. And because their contracts make them very secure, and keep the highest paid workers the longest, letting go of the teachers with less tenure when they must, those union dues are then funneled to political activity. Not the kids. Nothing against Mrs. Buschle, but my political affiliation is much different than her’s, and I don’t wish to support her activity with my money. So for me, that is the number one reason for not voting for the levy. No matter how many presentations they present to plead to the public, they still have a costly union that stands between the school system and the public. As long as that exists, it prevents my full support in a school system.
This isn’t new for me. I’ve been against union activity for many, many years. I worked for one once, and it was very contentious and filled with many stories that will be told around water coolers for years. Many of those stories involve conflict. I have no tolerance for thug like behavior that comes from pack mentality that often comes out in strikes and threatened union stewards. I personally blame that type of organization for making America less competitive and responding slowly to changing economic conditions which have resulted in exporting jobs to China, and India. And such an organization even locally migrates influence up the ladder to large global affiliations that conduct political movement that by-passes our ability to vote. I can see a time when unions did some good, but as they’ve evolved, they just kept growing to where they became as bad as the companies they originally sought to protect people from.
But many dissenters to the levy are voting strictly on cost. They may have been generous in the past, but can no longer say yes because now they are hanging on in a tough economy. And while many would love to pay the levy, they simply can’t because the taxes are just too high. It doesn’t matter if it’s a business, or a residential property, the taxes have reached a place where too much is just too much.
In response the school system is doing the predictable thing; they are making threats, by passing out on the first day of school literature for kids to send home to their parents lobbying for the levy. Such literature professes that the school system will have to cut an additional $12 million to the $13 million that have been made already. There will be increases in class size, cuts to two thirds of the athletic budget including elimination of junior high athletics, the termination of 130+ additional teachers and staff, and many other issues. Superintendent Mike Taylor made the comment that people can’t expect to see the same good school system if all these cuts are made.
The reality is that the State and Lakota are pointing to one another. The state needs Lakota and its success. And Lakota blames the state for unfunded mandates as a rationale for funding. And they count on the naïveté of the public to not look closely at the shell game. The confusion has essentially created a revenue stream that is very lucrative to those who work in education. And because of the union contract, most of the district’s funding is locked up. So they can only be minimally efficient.
Stories like we’ve heard of Butler Country Auditor Roger Reynolds who just refunded $502,186 back to the community, won’t happen in Lakota. In fact, Lakota is getting back $120,600 from Roger’s office. Roger achieved this savings by reducing overhead and administrative costs by 35% or otherwise $2.1 million since he took office in 2008. When Lakota cuts, they say we are losing services. When Roger does it, he is giving money back to the community. That’s the philosophic difference. The cuts Mr. Reynolds did were true, efficient cuts and quite extraordinary taking into account that the size of the Auditor’s office doesn’t come close to the enormous size of the Lakota school system. The cuts Lakota did are cosmetic cuts that should have been done all along.
For my support, Lakota would have to separate itself from a teachers union. There is nothing about that relationship that I feel good about. I simply don’t want my hard earned money going to union support that will be used against me politically. That would be foolish. But I suspect that the rest of the community would require a business manager that could come into the school system and dramatically cut costs in a way that Jack Welsh did for GE, and similar personalities have done when costs migrate to unsustainable levels in large organizations. The community just doesn’t have the money to support levies the way they have in the past, and now we’ve reached a diminishing return. The growth was caused by aggressive development, and the school system grew because the people moving to the district came here for the schools. The funding problem comes from the fact that wages migrated out of a zone that a community can fund, and the school system, and the rest of public education is guilty as well, did not stay within a reasonable budget, but allowed things to get out of control. Dramatic restructuring of their funding practices and revenue stream will have to be implemented, and they’ll have to do it while still performing at a high level. And the state of Ohio has to properly fund our schools, because we also pay taxes to the state and expect that money to be used where we need it. And our schools need it.
If the levy fails, and the pro levy people leave, like they threaten I know the district will survive. I lived in the district back in the days when Lakota was rural. Lakota was a good school then, and it will always be, because a school reflects the community, and the community has good people in it. If the new comers move out, they’ll just overload another district the way they have Lakota, in search of quick and easy answers which never come.
It is naive to even consider that throwing money at Lakota’s problem will solve anything. The solution to the problem will be tough, but starts with understanding that the school system is not the community. The community will always be good if the people in it are excellent. It is only natural that kids that come from good people will make a school system good too.
But the teachers and administrators don’t make good kids or good people. Parents do that. Don’t let them take credit for the things you’ve done as a parent.
President Obama is completely wrong when he says in this speech that Europe has a leading role in the world that America has failed to appreciate.
Obama is naive in his musings. While he does discuss that Europe looks at America with animosity, it is with similar eyes that a parent looks to a child that has grown up and away and achieved much success on their own, that jealousy corrupts Europe’s judgment.
Europe is a land where conflict abounds in continued droves of manipulated factions. In America, our success has always been greatest when the people were not hindered by useless government and the factions connected to it.
Such a dramatic example of the European model was out in full force when Al Sharpton held his rally at the same time as the Glenn Beck Restoring Honor speech in Washington.
In this case, if Al wanted to truly take that next step, he would have taken all the people at his rally over to Becks rally and asked Glenn if his rally could be a part of the festivities. And without a doubt, Glenn would have incorporated them into the Restoring Honor Rally.
But Al is all about divisiveness. All his power comes from the conflict of black against white. He has no desire to truly succeed at a world where white and black work together for a strong America.
And such is the relationship between Europe and the United States. Europe will never admit that America has developed a supreme self government that has allowed for fantastic technological advancements and a robust economy. And this is the reason for the naiveté of the president’s speech to Europe.
The Restoring Honor Rally at Washington was all about fixing what it means to be American, then seeking to replace the corruption that we’ve allowed to fester in our government like termites in a home, because we allowed ourselves to look to other countries for guidance when the answer has always been within ourselves. But such a society does not want leaders, because each individual is a leader of their own lives. And Europe will never go for that. They’ve been at war with each other since the Neanderthal painted a cave painting in France. Actually, probably much longer than that, but you get the point.
And even on the day after, there is much debate over how many people actually showed up. Was it 100,000, or 500,000? Such a focus on things like this show how trivial the media is, and why there is a need to discuss spiritualism in American culture, and remind people what it says at the top of the Washington Monument.
What matters is that we serve as an example of what works, and to not extend a hand out to a corrupt system of government. But before we can do that, we have to know what it is that we are. And to consider that, remember that America was founded with voracity to escape Europe’s philosophies. And the pain of that is reflected in Chief Seattle’s Speech from 1854.
Chief Seattle talks about our Time of Decay, and that is where we are. And if one wants to truly preserve the Native American, we will make the conflict with them a worthy one, and allow for one country on the face of this planet to serve as a beacon of freedom and perpetuator of goodness for all the world, because we sit in a similar place as the Red Man of Chief Seattle. Europe is at our doorstep, corrupting us with their divisiveness and corruption, with their greed and quest for power. And what we do with that will decide the fate of humanity.
The Overmanwarrior 