Tag: Rich Hoffman

Why the Rich get Richer and Poor, Poorer: Eric Holder’s “Alinsky” Strategy

With all that is and will be said about Eric Holder’s resignation from the Justice Department, it must be noted that as the wave of scandals continuing to rise against his many crimes and fallacies that his move is simply another trick learned from Saul Alinsky’s popular leftist book Rules for Radicals.  Eric Holder, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and virtually every other mainstream radical activist from the political left have used that book as a modern religion to attack the premise of America.  The essence of their position is to steal wealth from the rich, and give it to the poor without considering why the rich are the “haves” and the poor are the “have nots.”  They as leftist radicals, because of their sympathies toward communism, which was quite popular during their marijuana smoke induced youths, failed to understand that wealth in America is not a finite resource like coal or natural gas.  Just because it exists does not mean that it runs out.  In America wealth is created, so if wealth is stolen and given to a lazy slug who would rather sit on a couch all day than work at a job, the wealthy person can still make more money while the poor person will typically blow all their looted treasure on cigarettes, alcohol, and lottery tickets. This is why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Alinsky taught a small army of functioning communists to attack those with money in American culture and redistribute that money to those who didn’t have it.  It was a scam that has proven a failure, and Eric Holder has been caught many times playing the activist role for President Obama using Saul Alinsky’s book as their personal Bible.  Holder is doing essentially the same thing that Hillary Clinton did after the Benghazi scandal—leaving office following Saul Alinsky’s methods of diffusing a target until people fixate on the next shiny object.  Here is Hillary’s personal letter to her mentor Saul Alinsky in 1971—just to provide a backdrop of how important the old radical was to the future staff of the White House.

Much has been said about Alinsky and his dedication of his book to Lucifer.  Alinsky died at the age of 63 of a sudden, massive heart attack in 1972, on a street corner in Carmel, California. Two months previously, he had discussed life after death in his interview with Playboy:[4]

ALINSKY: … if there is an afterlife, and I have anything to say about it, I will unreservedly choose to go to hell.

PLAYBOY: Why?

ALINSKY: Hell would be heaven for me. All my life I’ve been with the have-nots. Over here, if you’re a have-not, you’re short of dough. If you’re a have-not in hell, you’re short of virtue. Once I get into hell, I’ll start organizing the have-nots over there.

PLAYBOY: Why them?

ALINSKY: They’re my kind of people.

Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals is the late work of community organizer Saul D. Alinsky, and his last book, published in 1971 shortly before his death. His goal for the Rules for Radicals was to create a guide for future community organizers to use in uniting low-income communities, or “Have-Nots”, in order to empower them to gain social, political, and economic equality by challenging the current agencies that promoted their inequality.[1] Within it, Alinsky compiled the lessons he had learned throughout his personal experiences of community organizing spanning from 1939-1971 and targeted these lessons at the current, new generation of radicals.[2]

Divided into ten chapters, each chapter of Rules for Radicals provides a lesson on how a community organizer can accomplish the goal of successfully uniting people into an active organization with the power to effect change on a variety of issues. Though targeted at community organization, these chapters also touch on a myriad of other issues that range from ethics, education, communication, and symbol construction to nonviolence and political philosophy.[3]

The Rules are artfully presented in the seventh chapter, “Tactics,” in thirteen specific headings. Those are: Power is not only what you have but what you make your opponent think you have; stay within the confines of your expertise; take the opportunities presented to go outside the expertise of your opponents; make your opponent live up to their own rules; ridiculing your opponent can be a most potent weapon; make the tactics used by your own people enjoyable to them; do not employ a tactic so long as to drag it on; always keep pressure on your opponent; the threat is usually more terrifying than the actual thing; develop tactics to keep pressure on the opponent; push a negative long enough to turn it into a positive; always have an alternative solution, lest the opponent accuse you of having no solution; and, pick the target, preferably a person, then freeze it, personalize it, and polarize/isolate it from sympathy.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

  • RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.

  • RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

  • RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

  • RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.

  • RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

  • RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.

  • RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.

  • RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off-balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.

  • RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.

  • RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.

  • RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.

  • RULE 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions

It wouldn’t take much imagination to see how all those rules from Alinsky’s book have been applied directly to every single human being in America in one way or another.  Labor unions have also used Alinsky to advance their cause greatly expanding the radicalism of the political left’s communist foundations.  By attacking righteousness from the position of Lucifer himself, Alinsky started a process in America which would eventually destroy the good country that it was and make it into the mess that it currently is out of a premise that open theft of created wealth would be considered virtuous.   Anyone who attempted to stand against them would see Rule 12 thrown at them in large doses making their military advancement against goodness an unchallenged path to social destruction.

If you’ve ever dealt with a school board in your local community you have surely been a part of the Delphi Technique which is an offshoot of the Alinsky Method.  It is designed to bring a community into consensus with the facilitators driven in the case of government schools toward the same leftist agenda points.  Alinsky is taught and used virtually everywhere that anyone from the political left operates.  He is their religion and purpose for existence and all this work is in dedication to Alinsky’s mentor—Lucifer.

When people catch themselves shaking their heads in wonder at the vast evil coming from the Obama White House, the actions of Hillary Clinton, and the epic failures and crimes of Eric Holder look no further than what they were taught by Saul Alinsky, and why.  They have a hatred for productivity so intense that they actually believed that the type of people destined for Hell, should be the type of people in charge of everything—Saul Alinsky said it himself.  And while it has been occurring, the virtuous, the productive, and the politically conservative have been exposed of their natural kindness to believe they did something wrong and needed to open themselves—and their check books to these liberal vagrants.

Eric Holder and his resignation is simply a variation of Rule 12—as the scandals and investigations mount, a liberal radical whether it be Hillary or Holder removes themselves from the polarizing result of such investigations to stop the network of anger from brewing further.  This is how the left typically diffuses trouble for themselves and they learned the trick from Alinsky—directly.  With Holder off the radar and a pardon waiting for him by Obama a year and a half from this writing, the conservatives of Washington will back off and lose interest—at least that is the plan.  Why—because it says so in Rules for Radicals.  They are that predictable—so it deserves to be asked—why don’t we stop them?  The answer to that is worse than the question—because we are still playing by social rules that were in place before Alinsky turned the political world on its head serving Lucifer by his own admission.  Those who stood for goodness, and justice did nothing but look for excuses so they could avoid the impact of Rule #3—which has paralyzed them into inaction for nearly a half of century letting evil have its way unchallenged.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Up for Whatever Happens: Tampa Bay Beats the Steelers in an improbable win

There hasn’t been much to cheer about the last couple of years, and first part of this new season as I’m a diehard fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team.  It has been a transition period for them as they have sought after their correct player/coach combinations.  With the addition of Lovie Smith as the new head coach, I have been optimistic until the thrashing that took place in Atlanta.  I am also a fan of the Bud Light commercials, “Up for Whatever Happens” which I featured during the last Super Bowl.  So even after a terrible start to the new season, it was wonderful to see Warren Sapp grant a Tampa Bay resident with a dream “happening” by converting his living room into a pirate themed amusement park at the beginning of the game against the Pittsburg Steelers.  This is usually how it looks at my house on each Sunday that the Bucs play.

Football is a celebration of capitalism and the type of people who have assembled on the outskirts of society to attack the NFL are the same idiots who believe in global warming, the income disparity between men and women, and that it is better to have a president in the White House because of skin color rather than content of character.  These intrusive big-government, anti-capitalists want to step into the private affairs of Ray Rice, and Adrian Peterson along with coming after the Washington Redskin franchise name—as they do every “citizen” of the world for reasons that have nothing to do with justice.    These characters are not so interested in protecting women from domestic violence or children from abusive punishment—or honoring the name of a conquered people—but rather in moving the progressive bar further to the political left by attacking a mainstay of American capitalism—the NFL.  So I tend to support American football as a leisure activity in spite of their altruistic obsession of appeasing those same radicals with the pink ribbon campaigns and 60 minutes of exercise per day for children.  I believe that the Madden Football on Xbox and Playstation does more for children than an entire year of public school as far as teaching them how to think—so I love and support the NFL.

I also love Lovie Smith who has always been and continues to be a stand up guy who coaches in a unique way as a mentor first, and a leader desiring to win second.  This could be said of the Glazer ownership as well which I have spoken about in great detail over the years.  The Tampa Bay Buccaneer organization from the top to the bottom is a class act and a great enhancement to the Tampa Bay region.  Lovie Smith is the perfect kind of fit for the type of coach the Glazers had been looking for.  But after a terrible, embarrassing loss to the Atlanta Falcons—a division rival, I had no hope that the Bucs could bounce back and beat the Steelers playing in Pittsburg—where the home team almost never loses.  The mountain of improbability was just too high.  I didn’t even put my flags out for the first time in about 8 years.  I watched the game out of loyalty but I didn’t want to put too much emotional investment into a team that was obviously struggling with Lovie’s team philosophy. I didn’t even get excited much when the Bucs came out and sacked Big Ben in the opening moments jumping up to a 10-0 first quarter score.  The Steelers made some adjustments and came back to get the lead and held it until the closing moments of the game—but with 7 seconds left on the clock, the Bucs mounted a valiant comeback—held their poise and won the game.  It was very impressive, and if I had my cannons out, I would have shot them as seen in that Bud Light commercial.

I don’t care if the Bucs win another game this season—that win was one that I’ll never forget.  Hopefully the organization will build on that victory and step will into the future.  For all the talk about the recent Hall-of-Fame inclusions of Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, and soon John Lynch, Ronde Barber, and probably Mike Alstott, Tony Dungy, along with many others—the Bucs have been living in the past—happy to have their one Super Bowl win in 2002.  The ownership has tried to recapture that magic, but the results have been average.  There have been some great wins, and some fun Sundays, but the Bucs have not been able to rekindle the magic of their Hall-of-Fame players.  The Steelers on the other hand have a whole hallway of Super Bowl wins and a legacy of success that is unmatched.  Their current head coach is a former Buccaneer coach and has had great accomplishments in Pittsburg.  The reason it is so hard to win in Pittsburg is because the fans expect success from their team—and nothing less.  That is obvious when Pittsburg comes to Cincinnati to play which is four hours away to the south—there are nearly as many Steeler fans in the stands of a home game with the Bengals who follow the team to away games with great enthusiasm.  They do the same in Cleveland, and Baltimore creating a very intimidating fan base that rattles visiting teams during every Steeler home game.

It would have been very hard for Lovie Smith to prepare his team after such a daunting loss to get back on the horse and prepare for the Steelers—where the odds were against them in every category.  The NFL world was shocked to see the Bucs steal a win against the valiant Steelers—yet it happened in a convincing way.  Even when I thought the game was over with only a minute left—Pittsburg had the ball forcing Tampa to use all their timeouts—the defense put the screws to a very good Steeler offense.  The big difference in the game was that Gerald McCoy was back in the middle forcing the Steelers to attempt to run the ball to the outside where speedy linebackers were there to pick up the attempt.  The defense held, and the Bucs got the ball back with 30 seconds left to march down the field and score a touchdown.  Mike Glennon—the back-up quarterback throwing to a guy who was signed only the week before—who was cut after the pre-season, caught the ball on a slot reception and nearly made it into the in-zone.  Two plays later Vincent Jackson caught a touchdown stunning the football world.

After the game the Bud Light commercial featuring Warren Sapp and the Buccaneer themed living room came on again and it was just more revered the second time—because of the win.  There are a lot of metaphors in football that can be applied to life and it is games like the one between the Bucs and Steelers that serve as testimony to all of them.  Even when the odds are terribly stacked against you and you appear to be out-classed in every category—if you believe you can win, it’s the first step in marching down the field to get a victory—against all odds.  And in such times it takes a coach who is willing to spit in the wind of convention and not surrender to the temptation to lose his cool that can convince his team of young saplings that they can achieve the most audacious feat only a week after receiving the most embarrassing loss of their lives.  Lovie Smith is a great coach if for no other reason than the way he handled himself before and after the Pittsburg Steelers game of 2014.  It was a game that belonged featured in the Bud Light commercial “Up for Whatever Happens” because in the closing seconds on a brilliant autumn afternoon in the Midwest—it did.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

How to be a Great Parent: The importance of mentors through leadership

If there is one skill that I have which is strongest, and most valuable, it is that of mentoring—or providing leadership.  I’ve had that ability virtually from the first breath I’ve ever taken.  When I was younger I naturally knew what the next possible action of every situation was, but I often respectfully wasn’t presumptuous enough to disrespect the older generation who thought it was their job to provide leadership.  So I yielded a lot to their failures and figured that I’d just fix things when they were out-of-the-way eventually.  Part of the reason for that decision was that I have always believed it is best to allow people to arrive at conclusions on their own and that the leadership provided by me was to point the flashlight where they needed to go empowering them to take possession of their own destinies.  It is not good to have vanity in such an activity where others feel they owe you gratitude for showing them the way.  A good leader should leave the smallest footprint possible so that the minds affected feel that they arrived at a destination on their own—therefore getting their buy-in as individuals.  Of all the leadership roles that are most important in the human race, the relationship between parent and child is the most important—so naturally I have always been a great parent to my children.  But I’ve never sought to beat them over the head with my parenting ability, but rather allowed them to carve out their individuality based on their own predilections.  The results have been spectacular of course and highly unusual by social standards.  Of all my kids, some who are biologically connected to me, and those who come in by marriage—they are all unique.  However, my oldest daughter has put herself out there a bit and is emerging as one of the best photographers in the Cincinnati area doing many weddings and coverage shoots for expensive real-estate.  For those who are curious, here is my oldest daughter providing a sampling of her outlook on life which obviously makes me very proud.

I never look at those types of things and reflect of my input into helping to shape her.  It was my leadership ability which helped pull out of her way the obstacles that might otherwise encumber her, and to show her what could be achieved.  Since I don’t practice the social evasion of a second-hander there is no secret yearning for public recognition for doing a wonderful job as a parent—not even within our own family structure. The reason is that those receiving mentorship by me should arrive at their destinations on their own merit taking possession of their lives individually without the vanity of public recognition.  No other person, particularly those un-enlightened oafs lacking direction, has the right to take credit for a person’s destiny.  There should never be a temptation from one to another to say, “I made you what you are.”  To do such a thing is to rob from the recipient of your leadership the right to declare their own life for themselves—and thus all decisions which trickle from them in the thereafter.

In this next clip my kids took my grandson on a day trip for no other reason than just to give him the experience.  They left after breakfast and drove across the state for a day of adventure and were back before dinner.  It was the kind of thing that most people never attempt—because they have such poor time management in their lives, they don’t even provide the effort.  When my kids were little children, I always provided them with similar adventures which squeezed everything out of life that there was available—because it is always in those efforts that the gold nuggets of existence reside.  As a leader you never quite know where or when those nuggets might turn up or in what quantity.  What you do know is that the treasures are hidden off the normal path of life and that if mankind wants some of that treasure that they have to step off the paved roads we are all taught to stay on to find them.  I taught my kids to look for treasure off the main roads—and as adults they have done just that.  I can’t take credit therefore for their wonderful lives—they own the right to their decisions and how they spend their time and energy.  So it gives me great pride to see them take my grandson on a simple adventure designed specifically to his age and ability knowing that what they are doing is providing leadership to the young man—which will empower him to wonderful things during his lifetime.

If leadership is done right, it should be as invisible as possible, only recognizable in your absence.  If people don’t learn to do for themselves, they will forever become prisoners of other people’s opinions—which is a chaotic mess of discombobulating thoughts.  If they learn to do for themselves, the potential that is unlocked is endless.  When I was younger I was the hated target of many parents who were doing their jobs incorrectly—and they hated me for the light I shed on their lives which they desperately hoped to conceal.  I was always—and still am—that guy who said to everyone chained to those types of circumstances not to listen to their parents out of obligation or loyalty—but only if they offered leadership that was valuable.    Don’t follow their light if they lead you to the doors of a mental prison or the mouth of a lion.  When I was younger I’d say these things but would often not take it to extreme measures because I wasn’t sure back then if my thoughts were correct as experience had not proven my path to be the right one.  However, as an adult I know without any doubt what the correct path is, and no longer feel that I should hold back.  So I don’t.

In a lot of ways this blog is doing the same things I have always done, only it allows me to do it on a larger scale—giving more people access to the types of things I have always said and done.  I offer the elements of this blog as insight into self-empowerment.  It’s the best parenting tactic that there is.  It is one thing to teach a kid not to touch a hot stove by allowing them to come to that awareness on their own.  The lazy method is to put the fear of God into them scolding them upon an attempt.  The proper method is to make them aware of the danger without fear by getting down on the floor with them—at their level so not to rob them of initiative and let them discover through you that the oven is hot by a simple demonstration—by pretending to be burned.  Of course you as the leader would not actually allow yourself to be burned—but you pretend to be so that they can see the pain on your face and equate that experience to something they’d rather not embark on giving them the self-empowerment to make decisions.  Once they learn to observe the conditions of their environment and make value judgments based on reality—you will have shown them how to overcome any obstacle, anywhere, at any time.

My daughter featured in that first video is the type of person that I don’t worry about getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere—because she can figure out how to get out of that situation.  I don’t worry about people assaulting her—because she has been taught how to think for herself and adapt to the circumstances given to her—even if they are aggressive.   I don’t worry about her making money, because she has been taught how to gather treasure off the paved roads of life and knows what to do with it once she gets it.  I don’t worry about her because she has the ability to provide leadership of her own to others and can do so as an endless stream of motivation.

Parenting should never be like an Academy Award ceremony where all the members of your life turn out to provide recognition for a job well done.  Most of the time it is a completely thankless job—most of the people most affected by it will not have the ability to understand what it is that you’ve done—if a parent does a truly good job, they will likely be the scorn of the family making everyone else feel a level of guilt for their own inadequacies—that’s alright.  Being a leader is a lonely job that must cut through public opinion with the clear sense of direction that comes from the person holding the light—and trusting their ability to find the proper way in the darkness whatever the obstacle.  The best of these leaders do their job without anybody even knowing that they are doing it.  And there is no greater role for the leader than the parent.  It is important not to shatter the confidence of a young person just to exert a feeling of control over another human being—which happens in most relationships between parents and children unfortunately.  Children are treated disrespectfully primarily because the parents are corrupt with the wrong type of thinking.  And those children often grow up to become menaces of society in various forms.  The failure can most of the time be traced back toward parenting failures and severe lack of leadership.

I only used this example of my daughter because it’s hard to know what a real human being is supposed to be like for those who don’t know any.  By social standards my daughter is exceptional.  But to my standards she is normal—and it makes me angry to see so many people surrendering their lives right out of the gate because of the mental restrictions placed upon their lives by poor family leadership.  Most of the world’s problems begin with that very primal concept—the parent/child relationship.  Most of the world’s problems start with poor leadership and a lack of understanding how important self-empowerment is to each and every individual on planet earth.

And for those who want to utilize the services of my daughter—here is how you can find her:

http://brooketownsendphotography.com/

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

White House Activism Against Corporations: A ridiculous argument against inversions

This is what happens when you get activists who think like communists in the White House. I received this email from them recently trying to build a consensus against the American corporation desire to create tax inversions for themselves to avoid the incredibly high corporate tax rates found in North America.  This is also what happens when corporations are demonized by a political class who wishes to believe that everyone underneath them is in the “middle class” and willingly submits to their gross miss management of national resources.  What the idiots who wrote the below letter conveniently forget is that it was they who spent too much money—not corporate desire to hang on to the profits they’ve earned that is the cause of the problem.  Read their ridiculous utterances here:

Here’s What Inversions Are Costing Us

You don’t get to pick your tax rate. Neither should corporations.

That’s why, earlier this week, the Treasury Department took initial steps to prevent U.S. corporations from using a tax maneuver to avoid paying taxes in America. This loophole — known as an “inversion” — lets a company avoid taxes by relocating their tax residence overseas while changing very little else about its operations or business.

And it’s costing Americans nearly $20 billion over the next decade — critical dollars that could grow and expand the middle class.

Take a look at why we are taking action to close the inversion tax loophole — then share it with everyone who needs to know.Inversions

Notice what type of presidents were in the White House during the periods of time shown on the graph.  Big government socialist types as opposed to conservatives.  When the White House says that it will cost $20 billion in lost revenue over the next decade what they really mean is that they have already promised too much money through mismanagement to future endeavors that cannot be paid for but through higher rates of taxation.  This is the same lunacy that comes from public school mismanagement when they sneak through school levies to pay for unfunded desires—like inflated wages, elaborate buildings, and ridiculously wonderful benefits packages.  What they all have in common is that they are government enterprises built by government minds that spend too much money so to remain in power—then expect tax payers to cover their costs out of some patriotic obligation.

No…………..

What this is called ladies and gentlemen is “mismanagement” of tax payer resources—not obligatory sacrifices to strengthen a middle class of subjects worshiping the feet of the political class.  When they say this “is what inversions are costing us” they don’t mean……”us” as in you, me, rich and poor—they mean the political class who desires under a socialist mentality to rule over everyone else.  They also want a blank check to waste as much tax payer money as possible then expect payment by their subjects without complaint.  But to make matters worse, because corporations don’t have the ability to vote except through lobby power—the government targets them to pay a disproportionate amount of corporate tax by demonizing them into compliance.  However, corporations in this new international trading system that the government so proudly sponsored is voting with their feet and leaving America for oversea tax shelters to protect themselves from a grubby government desiring to steal all the profits gained through production.  This is the inversion process that the White House is complaining about and rather than deal with the problem they caused they are using email activism to attempt and build an argument of democracy against corporations to protect the financial burdens they already committed America to through mismanagement to pay.

These same fools in government almost in the very next sentence promise that they want to create jobs—yet their proposal is to create more government positions paid for by tax payers forgetting that the only real jobs that directly contribute to the GDP of a nation come from corporations and small businesses.  They neglect to inform anyone that it is their mismanagement that is not only spending too much money, but also pushing jobs out of America making unemployment un-naturally high.  Government is the cause of both problems.

It is truly arrogant for a political class to assume that nobody sees what they are up to, yet there it is directly from the White House to my email inbox.  They are that audacious to complain about the life blood of the American economy—corporations—then promise jobs to people was if they had them tucked away in their back pocket like a condemn intended for use in a whore house.  They are that ridiculously foolish.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The College Menace: University of Boston stupidity

So much has been said over the years of the value of a college education—as if just by attending some institution of higher learning that it naturally equated to intelligence. Well—that myth has been busted more than once over the last decade. College graduates continue to show well into their adulthoods that they have been taught not to think—not how to—and are lacking a very basic understanding of the world and how it works. This is the fault of the education institutions themselves for marketing a product which has turned out to be a complete scam. Colleges have not lived up to their promises but instead seem to have regressed society due to the overly liberal leanings of most of the employees at the hallowed halls of academia.   This has never been clearer than in a recent random sampling of the Boston University students exhibited on a Jessie Waters segment of Fox News. Waters asked the college students there what they thought about the terror group ISIS, which has dominated news headlines for several months—and these were their answers.

A society cannot succeed if people are educated in such an inept fashion. The college kids in that segment are a pretty good sampling of the type of average college kids on any campus in America. I should know, I spent a year living on campus at the University of Cincinnati and got to know well all the layers of life at that particular college from the frat houses to the Alumni association parties. Every college is similar, and produces the type of people shown in the Waters’ World segment above. Democracy—which is so advocated by the political left requires some intellectual curiosity to succeed, but as seen by the sampling of college students at Boston, that curiosity is non-existent. The young people don’t possess any—let alone some.

This is a failure of the blind trust that society has placed in these institutions to do what they promised with the vast amounts of money which has been given to them. What they’ve done is waste it and teach instead liberal philosophy and social collectivism—and spent the rest on parties and opulence. The by-product of this behavior has built a nation of fools in America lacking basic common sense and intellectual aptitude leaving the concept of a democracy completely open to liberal take-over from within.

Stupidity is what is celebrated at such colleges like Boston University. Nobody wants to be that guy at a party who knows who ISIS is, or who the president currently is—because the culture at colleges celebrates ignorance, not intelligence. It is more popular to be the girl passed out on a floor with her face in her own puke being gang raped by those still standing than the book-worm know-it-all who is up to date on current events and could answer all of Jessie Waters’ comments fluently. The result of that value system is what we see today—a society of fools following other fools over an intellectual cliff which allows a bunch of knuckle dragging imbeciles like ISIS to look like a valiant fighting force.

Those same college kids will grow up unprepared to vote correctly, purchase groceries, or create businesses. It is no accident that many entrepreneurs are in fact college drop-outs instead of those who graduate at the top of their class. Most likely in a free society like America the valedictorian will end up being the assistant to the drop-out who starts and runs most businesses. But the valedictorian in most cases will not be the one to start anything from scratch as they have been taught to follow orders, not to give them from the perspective of vision. They are not taught to see, they are only taught to feel—which is a direct attribute to their college educations. This is the reason that even with all the news about ISIS, most college kids have no idea what is going on half way around the world.   If ISIS were involved in a song discussed in popular culture college kids would know all there was to know about them, because music invokes feelings. But when the situation involves just raw data, knowledge of history, and general philosophy—they are completely lost.

I’ve said it many times—why do we support this public menace called colleges? Is it because we like the sports programs that often come from them, or because we remember the fun parties we had when we were in school? Because colleges are ineffective as learning institutions and do very little to create complete individuals—they are only good for building recruits for liberal viewpoints. Colleges take public money from tax payers and they take vast amounts of American savings accounts in the form of tuition—but for what—so kids can grow up and know nothing?

It is time to consider other options. Because the college path is all but useless and if it is continued will lead to the end of civilization—not the further advance of it. The terrorists of ISIS are in all reality only discombobulated religious radicals not unlike the KKK which used to operate openly in the American south. But they appear to be a superior fighting force when society fails to identify the value of their assaults and in the case of today’s college kids—they don’t even know that ISIS exists—let alone know what to do about them. And that greatly strengthens the enemy—not quells the emotions of radicalism. Colleges have made America weak—and the folly of those attributes is the fault of the education institutions themselves. They own the condition of modern youth and all the stupidity that follows. So it is time to give that responsibility to the proper owners and let the rectification begin for a new way of obtaining knowledge that is not controlled by a liberal viewpoint driven by government preservation.

Rich Hoffman   www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops of West Chester: Thank George Lang and Mark Welch

Capitalism is creativity—the ability of entrepreneurs to bring ideas to market for people to enjoy.  So I often find great enjoyment in regions of the country where capitalism is on grand display and these days the corridor along I-75 just north of Cincinnati, Ohio has all the trappings of one of the finest developments in the world.  I personally enjoy the stores of the Cincinnati Outlets in Monroe, the Comic book/gaming store Nostalgic Ink at the very next exit to the south, and the book stores and restaurants at Union Center Blvd—of which Aladdin’s and Jags are my favorites.  There are of course plenty of government workers in this region that loot off the efforts of entrepreneurs, particularly the local government school, but generally, it is the conservative hands-off government of Butler County that has allowed these developments to emerge so robustly.  But there are few developments which excite me as much as the announcements from West Chester that two giant superstores of outdoor apparel, Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s are both opening over the next couple of years.  For most communities these types of giant outdoor stores are destination shopping experiences, meaning they are worthy of vacations just to visit one of the stores.  People do purchase plane tickets to visit these types of retail outlets wherever they might luckily be in the nation.  But in West Chester—because of the demographic population which has excellent per capita income, and the type of very pro capitalist government running the show—both giant retailers are dumping significant investments into the area which I will enjoy immensely.

I’m not crazy about the public funding portion of the Liberty Way project, but I am ecstatic about the development and simply cannot wait to see those buildings erected.  I want to attend the movie theater that they are putting there in the worst way.  I simply am excited to see the results.  I was fortunate enough to see the early prints of that development at the beginning phases and have been a fan ever since.  But even better is the 82,000 square foot Cabela’s store which is being built right across from Liberty Center.  That will be one of the most exciting locations of destination shopping in the country—and that includes the Disney World complex off I-4 in south Orlando.  The Voice of America shopping district is already fantastic, but within a few years of this writing, it will be the most exciting place in America to shop and spend suburban leisure time.  The Cabela’s store will just be icing on the cake—a very glorious cake at that!

But…………….that’s not all.  Just down the road to the south is the Streets of West Chester which is at the Union Central Blvd exit.  I spend a lot of time at the Streets.  If you have to take someone to lunch or dinner visiting for business, you simply cannot go wrong at Mitchell’s, Bravo! Cucina Italiana, P.F. Changs, Red Robin or after a late night movie, Steak & Shake which I find myself at a lot more than you’d think.  Barnes and Noble is like a second home to me—especially since Books A Million left Bridgewater Falls just to the west.  I have felt often that the Streets were too small however—and the plan has been for years to expand it to the south in a Phase 2 development.  Well, this is now happening with Bass Pro Shops serving as the anchor located a football throw away from the giant IKEA store located on Allen Road, directly across from the Mercedes Benz dealership.  Can you say it with me?   …………………………aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The Plan 2 development will be just the needed ingredient missing from the current Streets location which will make that too a destination shopping experience worthy of an out-of-town visit.  The trustees of West Chester George Lang and Mark Welch along with Bruce Jones have created a climate in West Chester conducive to business investment and the area is just exploding with creativity.  I was not a fan of Judith Boyko when she was working for the former trustee president Catherine Stoker—a vile Democrat who greatly limited the kind of creativity currently going on in West Chester with her big heavy-handed government presence.  Now Boyko under new president George Lang is on board with what makes West Chester special saying, “The development of these two new retail locations represents the largest concentration of boutique-like retail amenities in the West Chester area.  These are the type of retail destinations our diverse and sophisticated residents demand, and we expect both to be very successful footholds in our retail fabric.”  YES…….I agree with Boyko!  Jiminy Christmas—it’s about time that somebody gets it—and in West Chester—they do.  Capitalism is the foundation of America and there just aren’t many places where it’s more alive anywhere than in West Chester and other developments along the I-75 corridor.

But Cabela’s and Bass Pro will be a whole new level of excitement and coolness.  My family used to shop at the Bass Pro Shop at its current location in Forest Park, but the area has been mismanaged by local government and it has killed business investment.  The mall there has died and the retail establishments have fallen into a slumber—the local demographic population just cannot support such capitalist creativity—so business moves to where it can grow.  It cannot be managed the way many trustees attempt—but local government must create a climate of capitalism so to attract investment and thus creativity in diverse product offerings.  This will certainly be on full display at Liberty Center, but the Streets of West Chester will emerge as one of the most fabulous examples of such a thing anywhere in the country. Only Downtown Disney in Orlando may rival it in the years to come as for interesting destination shopping and things to do once you get there.  Bass Pro was already set to move into the area before the Cabela’s announcement, but now that they know a competitor is moving in down the road—they are revamping their original plans from something not just great—but ecstatically stupendous.  They are further revising their plans to include more activity based attractions at their new superstore to have a competitive advantage over Cabela’s.

For capitalism, these are exciting times.  The creativity of entrepreneurs is on full display specifically in West Chester but to a larger extent along a 6 mile span of I-75 stretching from Monroe to I-275.  There are not more exciting things happening anywhere than along that span of highway and capitalism is the reason why.  The key is that local political management has embraced free market capitalism as their guiding light, and this is the result.  Overly managed economies have pushed out these types of investments leaving them to retreat to this capitalist zone which is unique in the country.  When capitalism is allowed to grow it can do wonderful things—and in West Chester—it is.  I can’t wait to shop at Cabela’s and the new Pro Bass Shop at The Streets of West Chester.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

A Little Slice of Heaven: The Millennium Falcon up close and personal

On more than one occasion I have discussed the Batman film Dark Knight Rises as possessing an ability to change cultural opinions in a very dramatic way. I have said the same about the new Superman: Man of Steel. And of course I have professed on for pages and pages the importance of Star Wars and its dire warnings of institutional corruption and need for individual atonement. So it is not a surprise to see the director of the new Star Wars film having fun with the director of the next Superman/Batman film with careful social media plugs that have been going on for weeks. They know what these films mean to several generations of fans—and they are doing a good job of stoking the fires of mythology further. But J.J. Abrams went to another level when he released his latest video of a full scale Millennium Falcon from the set of the new Star Wars film that combined the Batmobile from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy to it. It was exciting to see as the detail on the movie prop was exceedingly meticulous—which was the point of the video which prompted the following reaction from the online site, Clever Movies:

Star Wars VII director JJ Abrams shows off the new/old Millennium Falcon and reveals a connection to a certain Dark Knight. If you’ve been on the internet in the last few weeks, you’ve probably noticed a slew of pics and videos have surfaced showing off the full scale version of Han Solo’s famous ride, the Millennium Falcon that will be part of next year’s Star Wars Episode VII. Well, it looks like director JJ Abrams has seen them too and decided it was time to show off the ship that “made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs” on his terms. Abrams released a video titled “Hunka Junk” on his official Bad Robot channel that shows a close-up view of the Falcon while the classic Star Wars music plays. But things aren’t exactly as they appear as the music quickly changes we pan around the ship. If you don’t recognize the music, it’s the theme to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy and as the camera comes to rest underneath the ship, we see Batman’s Tumbler has now become a fixture of the Falcon.

Now, for those of you wondering why on Earth the Batmobile would be on the Millennium Falcon, it’s all part of a Star Wars/Batman/Superman mashup that Abrams and Batman v Superman director Zack Snyder have been playing throughout production on both films. It all started back in July when Snyder tweeted this image of Henry Cavill dressed as a Sith Lord with the caption “#SuperJedi”. Abrams followed that with a photo of new Star Wars cast member John Boyega dressed as Batman holding a blaster with the caption “#BOYEGAMAN”. Snyder than tweeted out an image of Batman and R2-D2 together in a scene resembling that from A New Hope a few weeks later. Abrams countered with his own droid inspired photo featuring C3PO as The Caped Crusader. Things seemed to die down until Snyder once again tweeted out this photo over the weekend. It features a Stormtrooper being arrested by Gotham’s finest with the new Batmobile in view. The photo was a response to recent rumors that one of the Batmobile’s had went missing from the set. It was that photo that lead to today’s Millennium Falcon reveal. These Star Wars/Batman/Superman mashups are definitely unconventional, but considering both filmmakers are notoriously protective when it comes to set leaks, it’s a fun way to tease fans with details from the films and just gives us all a major nerdgasm.

In the past the Millennium Falcon was built for shots in the original trilogy, but certainly not to the detail that Abrams was showing off. The detail was excessive and was a small example of what fans of the new film can expect from the new Star Wars film. I can’t say how many times I have looked at Millennium Falcon models and wondered about what all the hoses and pipes would possibly do on that ship. I once stood at the actual model of the Falcon at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. trying to look at all the detail underneath the ship in the very area showed off by Abrams just to see what was connected to what and trying to figure out what everything did. But I never imagined that there would ever be a giant model built of the Falcon to this scale where such detail was committed to the smallest detail. That was what Abrams was showing off, and it was quite enticing. I have watched the video now well over 100 times in just one day and I’m not done. It is excessively exciting.

This is just a sample of things to come. It is a very exciting time indeed.

Rich Hoffman  

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

The Failure of Religion: Santa Claus, Star Wars, and the Kingdom of Heaven

I have a long history with religion. Where I currently am with the existing forms is that those who believe adherently to some form of religion are like children who believe in Santa Claus. Children need the mythology of Santa Claus to articulate to them the complexity of the Holiday Season while adults should have advanced to an understanding of serenity that is free of such mechanisms. Thus, many weak-minded people need religion to hold their thoughts about the world together in context to the mysteries of the universe. For them, they need to believe that there is still hope for them once they enter death that all the sins of their life can be washed away and that they can sit down with Jesus and share some bread in the Kingdom of Heaven, or hang out with Abraham and practice sacrificing their first-born children to some bearded deity skipping rocks across the solar system. Unfortunately for most of them is that they never learn that the kingdom of Heaven is and will always be all around them—just as Jesus tried to explain to people thousands of years ago. Attending a religion or a church is not a country club pass to the ever-after—but then again to the immature mind, it is equivalent to the need to believe in Santa Claus.

Religion does not take my mind where it needs to go, so I have had to part with it in its current form. That is not to say there is no value—I used to believe in Santa Claus and have many fond memories of my childhood while believing in such a thing. And the same for religion—I have many fond memories. But if you grow mentally, eventually you have to step out of those old shoes into something bigger—more universally encompassing. But what is next once such a thing is done? That is the problem that many find—is it in becoming an atheist or some other variation—or is it something else?

That is where mythology comes into play. Religion is simply a mythology and when it stops working, the facts of observation cannot be ignored so to stay true to the mythological stories. One cannot pretend that Santa lives at the North Pole when they know that it is scientifically impossible. They cannot ignore that impossibility and still serve reality just to continue supporting a mythology of Santa Claus living in such a desolate place. So a new mythology must be invented, such as like what the movie Miracle on 34th Street attempted—to explain that Santa bends space and time to deliver gifts to the world in one night.

Santa Claus represents the spirit of Christmas, but the adult mind knows that the season is about more than just receiving gifts. The relationship to the Holiday Season for society is much more complex, and when the human mind is ready for such a concept, they stop believing in Santa Claus and expand their understanding to encompass the more complex nature of the Holiday. At least in theory—thus the same should occur in regard to religion. However, too many people insist that their membership to a particular religion gives them access to the after-life without having to live up to the judgment of their actual lives. In this regard the drunk can enter Heaven because he accepts Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savor—passing off the responsibility of good conduct in life to a third-party sacrifice. Or for the Islamic radical, they believe they can enter the after-life by killing infidels. The Buddhist believes they can enter the spiritual realm by living life as a play and not falling in love with innate forms–the Hindu much the same only being resurrected as a frog, or a cow which used to be a beloved uncle. For those who step back and look at the situation properly, religion is a pretty stupid concept because the mythology of those religions has shrunk with time and knowledge requiring an expanded mythology to renew the importance of the values which religion is supposed to introduce to society. The failure that most people openly participate is the belief that a particular religion will do the trick—what they miss is the essence of what Jesus tried to convey—that the Kingdom is all around them—all the time—but they do not see it. What people must have are the values to unlock those secrets in the everyday life and understand that nothing really dies—but lives forever as an essence. We are all the light no matter what the religion—we are not the light bulb—the gross matter of the mind and body. The mind in command of the body is the essence of that immortality used like a vehicle to navigate through life.

To understand such a thing properly requires a new mythology which is why I am so excited about Star Wars. It is much more than a science fiction series of books, television shows and movies. It is a new mythology designed to build upon the religions of the past for a new era of thought—and it works. Simon Kinberg knows this and is the executive producer of the new Star Wars: Rebels animated series. George Lucas, as a student of mythology for many years and a key board member of the Joseph Campbell Foundation has personally trained these next generation filmmakers and Rebels is the first real step in that new direction. I have known this was coming for two decades—because of my involvement with the JCF. But now it is here and to understand how much potential impact it will have on world culture read the article below. The essence of the summation is that Santa Claus needs to be updated as a mythology to stay relevant to the modern youth—and there are stories which attempt to do that in modern movies and television shows. But the same needs to happen in religion—which for the fearful and unfocused is a terrifying prospect. For them, Star Wars is about to change their life for the better in ways that they have never thought possible. Religion is needed for the human race, but in the day and age we live in presently—it needs a much bigger shoe. For that—Star Wars offers a size that fits for the potential growth of an inquiring mind that is already living in the Kingdom that Jesus always talked about—and knows it.

And for those who didn’t listen to me when Disney bought Lucasfilm, shame on you. You could have almost doubled your investment dollars in just two years. But guess what—an 82% increase in value is just the tip of a mountain of what’s coming behind Star Wars: Rebels. A lot of people are going to get rich—and they will deserve it. The monetary value directly is connected to the intellectual value and the evidence will come in quickly starting in the fourth quarter of 2014. Now for an important article that offers proof of what I have said about religion and Star Wars.

“Star Wars 7” Is Still a Year Away; Here’s How Disney Is Profiting in the Meantime

A bridge to an old favorite

Next month, the studio debuts Star Wars Rebels on Disney XD with a one-hour movie. Early data suggests fans are nearly as excited for the animated epic as they are the next live-action film. According to a quick search at socialmention.com, social networking users were searching for the terms “Star Wars Rebels” and “Star Wars episode 7” once every 22 seconds. Google’s Trends data shows a similar correlation:

The message? Fans don’t necessarily care what channel or type of media it comes in; they just want more Star Wars. In the case of Rebels, they’ll get a story that looks and sounds like the 1977 version of Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope. But don’t take my word for it; listen to the whine of the Tie Fighters in this extended preview:

Star Wars Rebels kicks off with a one-hour movie on Oct. 3. Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm.

What history says about extending the Star Wars franchise
If my experience at San Diego Comic-Con is any indicator, fans will take to Rebels as easily as they did Star Wars: The Clone Wars, another animated epic that debuted with a movie. But in that case, fans had to brave the box office to see Anakin, Obi-Wan, and padawan Ahsoka Tano in a new adventure. Plenty did exactly that.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars took in $68.3 million at the global gate, and earned another $23.8 million in home video sales. Lucasfilm spent an estimated $8.5 million to produce the movie, which opened in August 2008. A spinoff TV show premiered that October and ran for six seasons, the last of which is available exclusively on Netflix.

To this day, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television show remains one of the most-watched animated series in sci-fi history. More than 1 million have rated the show on Netflix. In 2010, the Guinness World Records named Clone Wars the “highest rated sci-fi animation” on television at the time.

New stories mean new merchandising opportunities

Rebels may never be as popular as Clone Wars; but you know what? Disney investors will profit anyway. Just having the show allows the House of Mouse to greenlight entirely new merchandising lines.

Add-ons like these are why Disney brands are responsible for more than $40 billion in annual retail sales, and why its Consumer Products group — which writes the contracts and cashes the checks — has enjoyed five consecutive fiscal years of expanding operating margins. With new Star Wars gear on the way, a sixth seems likely.
Foolish takeaway

October marks two years since Disney announced its $4 billion bid for Lucasfilm. The stock is up more than 82% since, mostly due to the franchise-establishing success of comic book movies such as Guardians of the Galaxy. How much higher it goes depends on fans’ appetites for properties that exist outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe. None in Disney’s lineup have as much potential as Star Wars.
“I feel the greatest responsibility to Star Wars because I think it’s a religion greater than any other story of the last century,” Rebels Executive Producer Simon Kinberg said in an interview at San Diego Comic-Con. Fair? Blasphemous? I suppose that depends on your point of view. Either way, the pantheon grows when Star Wars Rebels begins airing next month.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/09/14/star-wars-7-is-still-a-year-away-heres-how-disney.aspx

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Steve Almond’s Salon Review of ‘Atlas Shrugged Part III’: Rush Limbaugh’s Dream

Whenever one of these Atlas Shrugged films hits the marketplace or something along the same lines—the hard core left reveals their true beliefs.  Out of all the negative reviews of Atlas Shrugged Part III by progressive types one by the ultra liberal Salon Magazine writer Steve Almond jumped out as exceptional for all the wrong reasons.  Of course, being like a young twenty something child who thinks they rolled over in the morning and knew everything about the world there was to know because somebody told them so—the typical New York liberal believes the rest of the world is driven by the same vagina minded passivity which motivated them—and they actually believe that all counter thoughts to their progressive tripe is “fringe.”  The fly-over states to the west of New York City is a scary place full of dangerous right-wingers who listen to talk radio—not readers of Salon, or the European salivating New York Times.   But on rare occasions they find a way to get their thoughts down in writing for all to see, allowing some measure of their disjointed philosophy to be measured.

Below is a recent article written by Almond as referenced by a Rush Limbaugh dream disguised as a review of Atlas Shrugged Part III.  It is hilarious and before anybody at Salon decides to take it down at any point in the future, I have put it below including the link. I even provided the link to Almonds anti-football book.  (Yes, he is on a campaign against American football as well).  It is hard to believe there are people out there who know so little about the world, yet think they know so much.  So for proof, please read this Salon article in its entirety below.

Here’s what I think happened. I think Rush Limbaugh had a lousy day at the office and drowned his sorrows in bad Mexican food — something along the lines of three El Charrito’s Enchilada Grande packs — and then I think Rush fell asleep on his sofa and had a beautiful dream.

In this dream, all the most powerful and talented Americans finally get fed up with big government and its bureaucratic parasites and follow a hunky guy named John Galt to a gorgeous valley in Colorado, where together they declare themselves on strike against the government. This means they get to live in harmony and throw awesome Caucasian dinner parties and invent miraculous technological devices and pay for everything with shiny gold coins.

And because this is all happening inside Rush Limbaugh’s mind — with its misty yearnings for underage third-world prostitutes and endless Oxycontin — the production values of this particular dream have the quality of an off-brand soap opera.

It’s all pretty awesome. Weaselly government leaders meet in back rooms filled with cigar smoke to plot new ways to steal money from rich people and nationalize industry and force scientists to invent torture devices so as to control the population. Then they swish brandy around in snifters and blow smoke rings.

Meanwhile, back in paradise, this hot babe named Dagny, who runs American’s only remaining train company, crashes her plane and John Galt finds her and carries her back to his pad where he doesn’t have sex with her — not just yet. First, he’s got to introduce her to all his badass friends, like the doctor who examines her with his killer new medical gizmo and says, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished without red tape!” Or the mom who explains that she’s home-schooling her kids because “I wouldn’t put them in an educational system that doesn’t teach them to think.” That’s maybe the coolest thing about this particular utopia: Everyone speaks in Republican National Committee talking points.

Unfortunately, Dagny has to leave paradise before she even gets to have sex with John Galt, because the government has nationalized her train company and is running it into the ground. Bummer. In fact, the entire country is falling to pieces without men like Galt, who is both a brilliant engineer and a professional hair model. But that serves America right because, as Galt explains, “the powerful try to make us feel guilty for our success.” And that is so totally not cool.

Alas, Dagny leaves the valley and heads back to grubby old America and it’s just as poorly lit and effed-up as you’d expect, though she does get to have sex with John Galt (who comes to rescue her), an act of coitus that is performed on her desk. This sort of eases the comedown of living in a reeking dystopia.

Then John Galt gives a big speech on TV during which he asks some tough questions of the American people, who are mostly huddled outside pawn shops staring at televisions through the security bars. “Have you noticed that as everything in your world seems to decline, one thing still grows?” he asks. Everyone kind of nods. “It is the power of your rulers. None of their plans and directives have solved your problems or made your life better. The only result has been the increased control over you at the cost of your freedom.” He goes on to explain how business leaders got tired of being called “greedy exploiters” and decided to follow him. Why? Because they finally “recognized the honor they deserved and rebelled against the guilt you wanted them to feel.”

It’s not exactly “The Gettysburg Address,” but the media response is off the charts. Sean Hannity appears on-screen, looking engorged with gravitas. He loves the speech. Glenn Beck salutes Galt’s moxy. Ron Paul arises from his Cycronic crypt to predict the End Times, which is sort of a reflex at this point. The crowds outside the pawn shops start chanting John Galt’s name. It’s a movement.

Naturally, government thugs capture Galt and drag him to a secret lab where they strip off his shirt and punish him using their special new Torture Machine, which involves a lot of sparks. Galt looks a lot like Jesus Christ, if you can imagine Christ with stubble and chinos. But then Dagny and her pals rescue Galt and all the ubermenschen fly off together to their mountain hideaway where, Rush is pretty sure, they eventually build a PGA-quality golf course and hire Playboy Bunnies to wax your balls.

Except — spoiler alert! — Rush wakes up before this last part can happen. Worse yet, he has diarrhea. The beautiful thing is that even in the midst of his diarrhea, Rush is able to get online and right there in his email in-box is an invitation to the premiere of the new film, “Atlas Shrugged III.”

And now El Rushbo realizes why his dream felt so gosh darned familiar: because it’s the plot of the third and final part of Ayn Rand’s 1957 potboiler, which will debut tomorrow, Sept. 12, mostly in those precincts of the country where citizens still call the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression.

If this were an actual movie review I would, at this point, pretend to give a shit about the film’s quality. But as anyone who sits through “Atlas Shrugged III” will tell you, the filmmakers themselves don’t give a shit about the film’s quality.

Back in 2011, when the first installment came out, most reviewers agreed to regard it as a “major motion picture,” though it was funded not by a studio but by an exercise machine mogul named John Aglialoro. As a piece of art, and a form of entertainment, “Atlas Shrugged I” flopped hard.

But if there’s one thing the conservative movement of this country has proved, it’s that it can move even the most imaginatively inert product. With the ardent promotional support of Fox News and the Tea Party’s corporate arm, the film managed to earn out in video. And thus we got a second “Atlas,” with an all-new cast and even lower production values. This final chapter has an exhausted, obligatory air. It’s like watching the final phases of a botched plastic surgery.

The director — and co-writer — is a man named James Manera, whose previous work includes a documentary about music and an episode of the television show “Nash Bridges,” which he directed in 1996. I think I’ve said enough about the movie.

The larger curiosity here is Ayn Rand herself. It would be easy to write her off as a demented Cold War hack no longer relevant to our cultural and political discourse. But that would be a huge mistake. Because Rand’s slobbering conception of laissez-faire capitalism is not only alive and well, it remains a galvanizing ideological force.

Consider the young darling of conservative circles, former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. Ryan worships Rand. He once gave a speech confessing that he went into public service because of her. He also asked his staffers to read her novels, so they could learn about the free market. During the 2012 campaign, Ryan did a good job of playing down his devotion, because Rand was an atheist.

But her fingerprints are all over his famous Budget Plan. To the “takers” in our society — the aged and the sick — Ryan would provide rationed healthcare. Federal budgets for education, transportation, energy and veteran services would be slashed. The rich, meanwhile, would be handed billions in tax cuts.

The whole idea is to do like John Galt says: obliterate any restraints on personal greed. The Ryan Plan is a document so enthusiastic in its fraudulence, so casual in its cruelty, and so certain of its own virtue that it could only have been dreamed up by a man born into money, educated by Ayn Rand, and given finishing lessons in Congress.

For all the low-budget absurdity of this new movie, the famous speech Rand penned for John Galt back in 1957 still stands as the Rosetta Stone of modern conservatism. This country wasn’t built by men who sought handouts! Sweep aside those parasites of subsidized classrooms! On and on Galt yammers, forever propelled by grievance and self-pity.

His vision of capitalism is a cartoon that plays over and over again on Fox News: no poverty or environmental ruin or lack of equal opportunity. Mercy is a mug’s game in this world, a false impulse. The pursuit of wealth, by contrast, is a form of heroic purity. If only bureaucrats would get out of the way, our intrepid industrialists would beat a path to paradise and leave the moochers to rot. Rand’s mission — now taken up by Ryan and company — is to present capitalism not as an economic philosophy, but an impeccable moral system.

The writer and critic Gore Vidal characterized the philosophy of Ayn Rand as “nearly perfect in its immorality” and a number of critics described “Atlas Shrugged” (the novel) as a narrative driven by hate.

But my take on the book, as well as the movies it spawned, is just the opposite. For all the contempt that Rand (and Galt and Ryan) aim at the government, the predominant emotion they express is one of unbridled self-love. Rand herself was a kind of golem of narcissistic excess, a woman with delusions of grandeur. And she tapped into the crushing insecurity of the wealthy, the manner in which they must constantly remind themselves how much they deserve their privilege.

What animates these people and drives their chintzy propaganda isn’t rage at all, but a kind of annihilating self-hatred.

Rush is going to love “Atlas Shrugged III.”

It’s not just a movie to him. It’s a dream come true.

Steve Almond’s new book, “Against Football” will come out next month.

MORE STEVE ALMOND.

 

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/11/sean_hannity_and_glenn_beck_in_a_bizarre_ayn_rand_fever_dream/

That is just hilarious!  Amazingly short-sighted, ignorant, presumptuous, and impossibly foolish—a piece of work which belongs exclusively to Steve Almond and Salon Magazine.   Please visit their site at the link provided.  They likely need the web traffic, so help them out with some pity for the good laugh.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The Treachery of Mr. Thompson: Thorium’s tenacious enemy

For me, there were several moments in the new film Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who is John Galt which was particularly powerful.  But the most powerful attribute of the film based on the 1957 novel by the same name was the actual electric motor invented by John Galt which runs nearly self-sustaining and provides all the power needed in Galt’s Gulch.  In the film when the police come to arrest Galt and take him to see Mr. Thompson they attempt to break into the room where the magic motor is kept only to discover that there is nothing there.  This was a neat concept as the motor seemed to be hidden from the world through a dimensional fold in space-time continuity which further substantiates the quality of the John Galt figure as an expert in physics.  In the film it was science fiction, but little do many know that such science is actually quite factual.

Several years ago I wrote an article about the technology of Thorium—which has the ability to provide power—extremely clean energy, and cheap to every home in the world.  A revolution in Thorium could give the simple hut in the middle of Africa or Brazil electric power without complicated infrastructure, and costly imports from foreign suppliers.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.    By clicking that link, you will see dear reader that the kind of energy shown in Who Is John Galt is not just science fiction, but is entirely rooted in reality.  But as usual, the reason that we do not have such technologies are the same ones provided in the film—the desire for power by characters like Mr. Thompson prevent technology from arriving to the marketplace because it denies the intellectually insecure control over the delivery method.

I have been a student of management methods for most of my life and I know all too well the cause of most misery in the world—its self-inflicted neurosis by the power-hungry to control the many through laws, technology, and other forms of manipulation.  There are many who work for organizations like the Red Cross—who get invited to Washington parties due to their altruistic endeavors overseas who would despise seeing a Thorium reactor powering a village in Africa.  Deep down inside they want African people dependent on charity organizations to bring food and medical supplies to the poor so that they have something beneficial to do with their lives.  They want the death and misery because they believe it will get them into heaven through some distorted grasp of Biblical teaching.  They cannot accept that by giving the people of Africa power that they might care for themselves—therefore not needing the West to care for them at all.  So they deem Thorium technology dangerous and a threat to the earth—so to take the debate off the table.

Another set of characters who do not want Thorium power, or anything like it, are those who work in the dirty energy business—oil and coal.  Although there are great uses for these energy providers today, at some point in the future—we can do better.  Thorium is but one potential source.  However, the energy industry does not want to alter their market plans—their labor unions don’t want the competition, so they lobby politicians to maintain the status quo.   Many publications against fuel sources like Thorium are created through this method—to scare the public into submission of dirty fuel forever—leaving greenie weenie activists plenty of ammunition to utilize against such industries as environmentally hazardous.  So in a stalemate between the environmentalists who believe the printed articles against Thorium and the dirty energy companies making great livings off the old technology—nothing happens.  After all, the goal of the typical progressives is not to advance forward as mankind but to make the developed world more like the undeveloped—to demonize technology until everyone lives in a kind of hut—like the poor Africans.  Watch the following video documentary about Thorium to learn much more.  

Since I wrote that article about Thorium nothing much has happened to advance the technology just as nothing much has happened regarding the Mollar flying car.  The technology is there to cure cancer, to fix bodies through regeneration, to have self-sustaining electrical power, to completely revolutionize the transportation industry—but what is in the way are too many people like Mr. Thompson in Atlas Shrugged Part III.  For those who criticize Atlas Shrugged, if people like John Galt were free to think and act without restriction, world hunger would be eliminated, poverty would be nearly eradicated, disease destroyed, cancer solved and society would advance greatly.  But the trouble is we allow people like Mr. Thompson to stand between us and fate.  We give them power because we fear the responsibility of it.  Mr. Thompson in the film Atlas III was a complete idiot, he does not fear that responsibility, but is addicted to the power it gives him making him an opposite menace.  There are many like him running governments and companies the world over and they are there because we fear what might happen when altruism is stripped from our reasoning.  Society fears not having problems that require charity—because their ideals of religion and good living have been defined by misery—and stupidity.

So it was wonderful to see the science fiction of a world where at least someone has broken through the shroud of foolishness and actually built a perpetual motor that runs off static electricity naturally existing in the world around us—which never ceases to run and does not need government, infrastructure, labor unions, or the Red Cross to operate.  As usual it is groups of people who stand in the way of what human beings can invent for themselves to advance their culture—but through advancement those who currently have power would lose it if they could not adapt to the changing circumstances.  It is those who run those groups who fear losing their power to the self-empowering technology that comes with invention.  It almost always comes down to poor management ability of personal and external resources and the secret desire to control those resources so that options are limited.  Some examples might be the fearful husband who tries to keep his wife lacking a car because he fears she may seek to cheat on him.  It doesn’t occur to him that if he were a better husband, that such temptations might be avoided.  So rather than deal with the effect of the cause, he denies the mechanism for performing the task out of fear of losing control of the wife.  The same might occur when a boss sees in a subordinate ability that might challenge their authority in the future, so they find ways to clip the wings of the subordinate through management tricks so to keep them grounded and under control.  This actually happens every day in virtually every place of business on the face of planet earth.  Or consider the lazy parent who attempts to make their children fearful of everything because they don’t want to get up off the couch to help teach a curious child—so they numb that curiosity with fear so that they can be free in the afternoon to catch Jerry Springer at 5 PM.

Governments run by people like Mr. Thompson have strangled our future through such methods and most accept that reality as a fact because they are beaten and defeated people intellectually crippled at birth by an anemic education system and faulty parents.  But a few, people who went to see Atlas Shrugged Part III and enjoyed it—even with all the flaws of the film technically were able to see the miracle of the John Galt motor and know that the possibility for such a thing is very real—and immensely intriguing.  I think I’m going to see that movie a few more times before it leaves the theater just for the pleasure of seeing such a world alive even in the fantasy of a darkened theater.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com