Tag: Rich Hoffman

The Lakota School Levy and the Infamy of Bad Decisions.

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.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

What Keeps America Free?

What keeps America free?

Two things:

First, it’s an educated and thoughtful public. Obviously, Americans have become lazy over the years, and this has opened the door for propaganda to penetrate our culture.

The second thing is journalism. For my money Bill O’Reilly is the best reporter of our modern age. He’s really the only one I can think of in mainstream media that does the job the way it’s designed to be done. There’s a reason he’s so popular. It’s because he’s done the work and people know he’s doing the job with his heart behind it.

Who could say that Bill O’Reilly doesn’t work hard or care?

A journalist or reporter isn’t supposed to be friendly, or even liked. They are supposed to be the watchdogs of our society. Not instruments of propaganda.

Those that say Fox News is the right hand of the Republican Party are part of that first point; they are lazy in that they just buy into what people tell them because they are too lethargic to find things out for themselves.

Reporters are supposed to be confrontational. They are supposed to dig out the truth.

More and more however, in this non-confrontational society, reporters are afraid that they’ll miss the scoop if they tick off those in powerful positions. That too is because they are lazy. They are waiting for someone to tell them something, instead of doing the digging themselves. Again, this is why Bill O’Reilly does such a great job.

I’ve watched local newspaper reporters totally fold to school board members because they spend so much time with the elements of the stories they write, that they form friendships and become lap dogs. So inadvertently, they don’t do their jobs correctly either because they are closer to the story than the people they are presenting the story to.

So before proclaiming that one network or one reporter or another is part of an agenda, just look at their work ethic. Reporters that work hard for the news are not likely to be a lap dog for powerful interest. And I’ll trust a hard working reporter every time, because I value what they tell me no matter what the material they worked hard to get, says.

I think a lot of you Bill. Keep up the great work!

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

A Journey through Progressive Philosophy

What is the Progressive Philosophy and why it’s a misguided and naive journey that millions of good Americans have fallen to?

What follows is a video journey of progressive ideology. The below video is a clip from Angeles in America.  You will recognize Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, both of whom I think are fantastic actors.  But you have to remember, they are actors, and their thoughts generally come from a writer, which makes them perfect pitchmen of political philosophy.  They often don’t investigate matters too deeply, the same as everybody else in every workplace.  Because the money in Hollywood goes to projects and people who embrace progressive thought, naturally successful actors will reflect that philosophy.  That’s how they stay in work. 

This is the platform:

This is the implementation:

This is the reality:

The Warning from 1946.

The hope to stop the Snake oil salesman that have dominated our political system.



The War:

What are the weapons and when did they strike hardest………sex:

This in 2003

And this in 2004

After these events, sex officially became mainstream on public air waves. Films then had to take the next step, and the pornographic industry had to turn up the marketing blitz. And during this great distraction, which is so very easy and seductive, progressive ideas have grown deeper roots.

With this information, do what you will with it. But don’t be gullible in thinking that this is not an organized insurrection from foreign powers no different than mankind has always experienced. For all those literature buffs out there, read Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, one of my all time favorite plays. The motives from then are the same as now.

My advice, don’t buy the snake oil.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

A Whip Trick to Save America

It was the conclusion of a particularly difficult week when I read on The Blaze.com  that a group had formed to watch out for hostile Tea Party Members, this coming on the heels of the 8/28 Rally, which may have been one of the most peaceful gatherings of such a large crowd to ever migrate to Washington. Locally, I had several colorful debates with a number of individuals regarding a school levy, which is the second attempt in less than 6 months. The article in The Blaze hit a nerve with me because as I looked into the group that was performing this “Watchdog” of the Tea Party, and saw what they considered to be “hostile, or extremist” behavior, it was apparent to me that I fell in that extremist category just by breathing air. And that the problem wasn’t in some far away land, but the same rhetoric was being applied by local union members and dedicated parents to create the same PR campaign against opponents of a school levy.

I was thinking about all these topics a few months ago also, when I sat down for a steak dinner with some of my friends after the Annie Oakley Western Showcase at the Darke County Fairgrounds, hosted by Gery Deer. Chris Camp had taught me a trick that he was doing for his shows all over the country that I wanted to try, so as I have been working on that trick, these other political problems stayed at the front of my mind, leaving me to come up with a thesis of sorts, which culminated into this video.

Enough said.

After my initial post of this, I am honored that the hottest thing regarding internet news The Blaze did a feature of this video once they heard about it.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2010/09/04/a-whip-trick-to-save-america/

Hope those guys keep up the great work, because I am seeing them publish stories quickly, and of a large array of topics that are hard-hitting and to the point.  Too bad the rest of the media hasn’t been doing this kind of work all along, because America wouldn’t have slipped into this propaganda war that we are currently in.

UPDATE —  see the latest version of this trick called A Whip Trick to Save Lakota.  CLICK HERE.  

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

American Light in the Darkness of Humanity

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.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmwarrior.com

Taking the Red Pill

The Matrix has a wonderful way of putting a very common dilemma that we all face, the blue pill, or the red pill.  Now a word of warning, this is a long blog, and some of the videos are quite extensive, and are designed to assist the text.  So a bit of time is recommended to read this one. 

This dilemma is one that we are encountering politically, one that we are engaged in spiritually, and it certainly is economic in nature. And it can be best summed up as do you want to take the blue pill, which in the film The Matrix keeps a person asleep and connected to a massive virtual reality simulator, or do you take the red pill, which cuts off your brain from the simulator, and lets you see the truth.

I was watching a show on Fox, some dance show where a black dancer, an Indian dancer, a white female, and actually a person in a wheel chair were dancing on a stage. I thought the wheel chair dancer was a bit strange, and that is what keyed me to look at the other dancer’s ethnicities. I’m certainly not against any of those groups dancing, but what I felt I was witnessing was a bit of propaganda, to advance a social agenda. And for me, that’s where I draw a lot of lines. To me, this was blue pill propaganda. Let me explain.

In 1993, I was part of a “change of use” project for a rehab on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. That year, the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 was well under way, and the building code people for the city of Cincinnati were very sensitive to it. So it made my life a literal hell, because investors I had in the project I was working on were impatient to see a return on their investment, and this ADA thing was delaying the project.

The delay was simple. My change of use was on a third story warehouse space and it had a loading ramp that took people to that floor. It was a nice big ramp that a car could drive up with little trouble. But, the business on that third floor was a commercial business, and in order to get the permit, I had to comply with the ADA, which meant that people in wheel chairs had to be able to get up to that floor on their own.

The grade on the ramp was too steep for the ADA law, so the only option was that I’d have to put in an elevator, which at the time would take the enterprise up an additional $50,000 dollars and push my project over budget. And the investors would not budge on that money, so it left me in a terrible position.

Needless to say, I worked through the problem. I read the law and the Ohio version of it backwards and forwards and back again. It was a huge book of code law. I remember well over a thousand pages, and I eventually found a clause which consisted of 1 sentence which exempted our project from the law.

But until I found that, I was in deep trouble.

Now I went to the extra trouble to find a way around the issue that didn’t involve money, because the money wasn’t available. So in order for the project to move forward, I had to figure it out. I had two architects and an engineer that had to be fired and took those duties over myself in order to proceed, because within those establishments, the ADA was already an accepted practice, and they were telling their clients to spend the money to deal with the law, and they wouldn’t do the extra work to find a way around the law to save money.

What that means to me is that the cost of every project for everyone increased proportionally after the ADA went into effect, which of course drives up the cost of the services they provide, in order to recover the cost. And when it comes to government work, it justified increased spending and revenue collecting, so the ADA was a tremendous revenue stream and job creation bill.

I’ve never had anything against handicaps. My personal thoughts are one of independence. I support advancing technology that would eliminate handicaps. If the money spent on the ADA were spent on scientific research, it can be argued that we could have eliminated handicaps completely by now. But in my experience, and knowing the heart of many politicians including mayors, congressman, city council members, and you know who you are; I believe that there is a strong desire to keep people handicapped so there is job security for government. It’s not religion that is holding back Stem Cell Research. It’s government, because if people healed themselves, there’d be no reason for Health Care reform. There would be no reason for government. But we know through science, now, that aging truly is a choice. We have within ourselves the ability to heal anything, because we were built from the same cells that still reside in us all.

Without question this is the desire behind racism. As long as there is racism, there is a need for government to act as a referee. It’s all about job creation, and has nothing to do with the betterment of mankind. This is certainly the motive behind the immigration issue, which is more about bloc voting than human rights. And this is at the core of the mosque issue in New York. Government loves the conflict because it creates something for them to do, to justify their existence.

What would you say if I told you there was an immediate solution to our transportation problems in this country? Well, there is, a technology exists right now that could put the United States leap years ahead of the rest of the world technologically, and would save billions of dollars on transportation maintenance costs. It’s called the M400 Skycar. It’s been around for a while. Check out the video. Or visit http://www.moller.com.

But government has been dragging its feet with this. They know that such an invention would screw up everything. States wouldn’t need so much highway funding from the Federal government because maintenance of highways would go down dramatically. We’d still need them, but to a much less extent. The Federal government uses funding to supersede the 10th Amendment in the states which allows congress and the President to impose laws they create, such as the ADA, or Health Care, or Education policies. And education is the most dangerous, because we are starting to see that 30 years of sensitivity teaching is having its effect on our population, which was the aim of government from the beginning. It makes it much easier to manage the masses, if the masses just do what they’re told. It’s an involuntary reaction to the primary concern of job security government has as it expands, and creates more and more departments.

Many people forget, but the Department of Education was only created in 1979. It’s not like it’s been around since the founding of the country and is an American tradition that must be preserved. Like many things in government, it was created after World War II, and once people fill those jobs, they go to work to justify those jobs.

It requires an intelligent public to see through the crap and vote correctly.

Now I just dumped a lot on you, and believe me dear reader, I’m sorry. Because, you see, I am on the red pill plan. I like to see things for how they are. And from what I see, most of civilization is on the blue pill.

How can I say this? Go to your local sports bar and look at what people are doing. They’re drinking to forget, and watching sports to fill their head with trivia they understand. The youth values are misplaced. Their primary information is coming from MTV, and American Idol. Their goals are clubbing and getting laid, which to me seems like a terribly short sighted way to spend time. But I’ve been married for over twenty years and one of the benefits of having a partner, and a good sex life, is that you don’t have to waste time on that non-sense. That would normally be harmless entertainment if people were on the red pill plan, but they aren’t. People want it easy, they don’t want to see. They don’t want the conflict, and they don’t want the responsibility of a decision. And being a voter requires all of those things. To be a good voter, you have to want to see the truth.

I’ve said a lot here and hopefully I haven’t lost you. Because there are things here that needs to be said in my opinion and nobody is talking about it. Glenn Beck does to some extent, but beyond him, I can’t think of too many people that truly get it. The one’s that do are either billionaires hiding behind their fortunes, or they are mountain recluses that just stay in their homes and shake their heads in frustration.

I can’t say enough about The Federalist Papers. In that book Alexander Hamilton and Madison go on to great extent about all the dangers we are currently experiencing. It brings to my mind that if attorneys had to read this book in law school, which I understand they do, then they didn’t understand it. Because the practice of law in this country is as out of control as the politics and none of them are following the formula laid down by the founders, they missed the point completely.

But the reason is that they are taking the blue pill. They are only going to law school to get to the good money of becoming a lawyer. They have their eye on the nice home, the nice family by looks only, the nice car and the social respect that only values the surface of things, in other words, the blue pill values.

And these are the people that don’t want to consider that it is a constitutional breech if the President was an illegal alien, and this is why he’s sensitive to the illegal alien issue, aside from the fact that illegal immigration is a major voting bloc of the Democratic Party. Or that it’s possible he’s like a suicide bomber sent on a mission to undo the United States from within. I’m not saying he is or isn’t any of these things, but the fact that people don’t even want to discuss it says a lot. Because the observations any thinking person has witnessed brings up the questions.

One of my favorite video games is Sid Meier’s Civilization. In that game you basically take a civilization from the Stone Age to the space age. You fight wars, develop culture, and maintain relationships with other nations, on a quest to advance your own country. In that game you can use spies to infiltrate rival countries and steal their technology. You can use important people to convert other civilizations cities to function under your control, and generally use large amounts of deception to advance your own civilization. And it is impossible to play this game without wondering if the same strategies are being applied to the United States from aggressive foreign enemies, enemies that shake your hand to your face, and plot your demise behind your back. Is such a thing a foreign concept? Doesn’t every work place in America have these kinds of elements? So why wouldn’t such plots exist at the highest levels of office politics? Why doesn’t anyone want to ask the question, and they point at the ones that do and cry conspiracy in an effort to shut them up? Because they want the relief of the blue pill, they want the simulation.

When you have an entire branch of government that doesn’t listen at all to the needs of the people that are active in government, because they are in a race to make the other half of the country, the youth, the illegal immigrants, the poor, the minorities, empowered enough to become a majority of the country’s population, then you wonder who they are listening to. Is it far fetched to think that a president would be placed into a position to undermine the constitution, and religious foundations by other civilizations? Is it that extreme? Is it far fetched that if America only pulled together after 9/11 when terrorists attacked a symbol of our economic might, hoping it would plunge America into chaos, that the same terrorists would try a different tactic, and undo the United States from within, and take away that sense of pride that was displayed on 9/12?

These are tough problems. But they can’t even be discussed if voters chose to take the blue pill instead of the red one. And it’s a shame. We get the country we deserve. And our worth is only as good as the reality we are willing to accept.

So is it the blue pill, or the red pill? Your decision and the fate of humanity are at your feet.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

Institutional Gate Keepers and Modern Philosophy Definition

Ah, the gods….gate keepers to the institutions of control.  The ones who cast the light upon the wall that create the shadows we all see.  I had been thinking recently that as much as many people crave freedom, they often act contrary to that freedom, but cleave to the shackles that bind them because they are safe.  What provoked this thought was that I had a discussion with a group of “smart” people that proclaimed that philosophy was something that had to be learned in a college. 

For one to be trained in philosophy and to discredit one who is not is to say that the value is proportional to the established way of thinking, which is to also say that corruption of the elementary idea is present.  How do we ever advance if we never challenge the established way of thinking?  If a thought is simply learned, then taught within a place of learning and passed on like a baton in a relay race? 

Original thinkers routinely have to step outside the establishment in order to bring something new to society. 

I’m thinking of the Twin War Gods of Navajo legend, where their village was being plagued by monsters they couldn’t destroy, and the weapon they needed was outside of the village.  And of course the members of the village told them not to go outside the village because it is dangerous and unknown.  And that is exactly where the Twin War Gods had to go, on a search for their father, in order to save their village.  

I will always be very skeptical of an idea created and evolved within an institution.  I would be more likely to trust a rambling half-conscious street dweller, because the ramblings are authenticated by their unique experience. 

But that’s just me.  However, sometimes it is tempting to take perfection and make something imperfect in a quest for knowledge.  This happens all the time, where young people that are loved and cared for find themselves knocking on the door of the Gods for entry into their palace and the pursuit of financial security.  But that is assuming that the God’s know more than the philosopher that is already on the outside, doing their unique work.

The institution is like candy, it promises sweet taste, and comes in a flashy wrapper, but it ultimately makes you fat and rots you from the inside out.  Such a metaphor is directly applicable to real life.  And institutions will not produce great philosophers, just one’s that learn how to do what they’re told and therefore get good grades.  And such a person is not one that I’d call a philosopher.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

The Expendables and The Lost Cannibals of Cahokia

This last summer, it is unbelievable how many movies are out there that just aren’t very good. I say this as I hear that The Expendables, the new Sylvester Stallone film is number one for the second consecutive week. It reminded me of some comments some professional script advisors gave me, which I thought was hog wash at the time and has been confirmed by my experience, told me about my screenplay, The Lost Cannibals of Cahokia.

Over a hundred thousand hits on Youtube, but it takes a lot more than that to get a good movie put together.

Several years ago, I wrote Cannibals based on the ancient civilization outside of St. Louis. It was an Indiana Jones type of adventure that featured a young college age woman, before Lara Croft was popular, which gives an idea of how long ago I wrote it. During the coarse of her adventure with two friends in the back woods of Kentucky, they discover that decedents of Cahokia were cursed by a shaman with human deformities that forced them to consume human flesh in order to stay alive themselves. It was an action pact adventure film. Critics of the story had a hard time believing that such a character could possibly do the things the heroine does in the movie. They wanted to see more emotion, more relationship conflict, and more character arch, which I refused because I didn’t want to make that kind of movie. They are a dime a dozen and have no lasting value in public consciousness.

The film was written for an independent film producer, and the deal fell through. So after that, I had a story, so I shopped it around the way everyone else does that writes screenplays, and the universal response was, “It was too bloody and the characters weren’t believable,” which was a way of saying that the characters were too dynamic and not functioning in a way consistent with normal human response. These being the same people that argued with me for hours when I complained that in the Blair Witch Project, I never would have become lost in the woods the way those kids were. The response was disbelief that I could say such a thing with confidence. So the line of communication was worlds apart.

Now since I wrote Cannibals, Kill Bill has come out. Several other horror films that are similar in grotesqueness, such as the Saw films have emerged. So the comments of the assistant to studio reading departments made me realize that the studio system and all the agents on Wilshire Blvd, are not able to sort out the good from the bad. They are obviously in some cases getting stuck in politics, where they stay away from such stories out of some dedication to a social cause. Or they are reading screenplays that are about issues that they can relate to, which consist of life in Santa Monica, or Beverly Hills, which explains why the films produced don’t resonate well with the American public.

Now people love movies, so they’ll go see them, even if they aren’t very good. But consistently, the movies that people hold dear to their hearts are not the kind of projects pounded out on Wilshire Blvd deals. They come from film makers that have heart and passion and push the limits of studio bosses to the limit. They come from taking chances.

So when I hear Stallone was making an old fashion “tough guy” movie when the industry experts are formulating stories about working women and their problems, and relationship issues, and the typical comedy, Spike TV is playing repeats of the old films from the 80’s where political correctness wasn’t so correct. And I was happy to see Stallone take the bold chance to make another good old fashion film where toughness is the central character.

On my own project with Cannibals, I’ve tried several times since the marketing to the studio heads to put together an independent film crew, both times things fell apart before filming could begin, which is part of the business. And that is fine with me. I’d rather hold out for the right team and a good distributer, than to sell the project short, only to make another film that comes out flat on the screen and dies in the video rental market.

It’s better to aim to make a film that people would rather see multiple times, and people still enjoy decades later when it shows on TV during the holiday marathons.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

My New Book: The Tail of the Dragon

For the last couple of months I have received a lot of email asking me why I spent so much time dealing with education issues but not addressing the obvious problems involved in law enforcement and the incredibly top-heavy budgets involved with them.  Well, it’s a bigger issue and can’t really be dealt with locally like education issues can.  And to me, I knew I recently completed the first draft of my second book The Tail of the Dragon that takes a hard look at just how far law enforcement has a right to go into our lives and the impact ethically that having too much restriction can have on the human soul. 

It has been quite a journey writing that novel. It started with a trip my wife and I took to the Smoky Mountains, where we ran the famous Tail of the Dragon on our motorcycle.  On that trip we witnessed the heavy hand of the THP as shown proudly in the video below.

I’m a small government guy. My childhood roots are in great car chase films like Hooper and Smokey and the Bandit. The way the Tennessee Highway Patrol acted toward drivers on the Tail of the Dragon set my blood boiling a bit.  So I wanted to do a story about The Tail of the Dragon, and the aggressive, and in some cases oppressive police presence there, and make the whole story like the climax of Hooper.   View that video below.

It is my belief that writing a novel can add new mythology to the embroidery of human existence, and is the most important, and responsible job on the face of the planet.

While most of the old car chase stories are considered to be low brow entertainment, I see a level of sophistication in simplicity that is missing from modern stories, which prevents readers from falling in love with the characters like some of the beloved characters of those old films and TV shows.  

The Dukes of Hazzard, which was on every Friday when I was a kid, still has a popular appeal to many.   To this day they still have these Dukesfest events where they jump and crash cars and everybody has a great time. I love events like this, because everything is so “unsafe,” and people have fun knowing how dangerous everything is. It’s a culture that most in New York and Los Angeles don’t know much about, but it represents a huge part of the country, particularly in the south.  And it’s a market that has been largely ignored.

Below is the famous Blues Brothers mall scene. Nobody has done a mall car chase like this in over thirty years! This is still a classic and beloved by millions, many for this scene alone.  So I made sure there was a mall scene in my book.

This past election put me on every news station in southwest Ohio, I was quoted in every newspaper, my presence was in high demand on talk radio, but above all those efforts, it was my ability to write, and communicate that made the difference on the unpopular issue of forcing education reform and defeating issue 2.  But I don’t plan to stop there.  Those of you that know me best understand I am not new to taking positions where I speak out on topics.  The issues explored in the Tail of the Dragon however, are larger and more complicated and require a broader public tapestry than what I can explore in a blog, and those other forms of communication.     

I think it’s time that something in our modern culture can reflect the happy-go-lucky attitude and tenacity displayed in scenes like this one from Hooper.  Socially, we’ve all become so sensitive that we’re all about to burst with frustration.  I offer the Tail of the Dragon as a relief valve for that frustration.

I wrote The Tail of the Dragon to entertain, and provoke thought.  It is an exploration of an authentic human existence explored through Rick Steven’s who after 20 years of marriage and a grown son that has just moved out of the house, finds he and his wife had seen their personal hopes and dreams drift away over the years.  Rick had put aside a career as a race car driver to raise a family, a decision that had always haunted him. Rick meets Chet Watson, a powerful attorney and former candidate for governor of Tennessee and finds himself caught up in the games of Watson and the current Governor of Tennessee in a plot to run for President of the United States by increasing the hiring of police officers all over the state.

CLICK BELOW AND LISTEN TO ME READ THE FIRST TWO PAGES:

After reading the first draft, I feel the work is close to what I’m looking for. The story is there and I’m happy with how the scenes go to together. Now it’s time for some re-writing. But, I am happy that I was able to capture the good old fashion thrill of the car chase story spewing with romance and danger, and to have characters that people might actually invest their emotions in.

And for the record, it’s OK to thumb you nose at the law……………..it’s even healthy for our republic.  So please, enjoy my new novel Tail of the Dragon, seen in the clip above and celebrate the law breakers who keep America free.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmanwarrior.com

For info on my screenplay The Lost Cannibals of Cahokia, check it out here.  I’ve been looking for a good group to assemble for that project.

Star Wars and Political Science

Star Wars and Political Science

I have to report something that many, many people will find excessively disturbing. Now, in the context of what I’m about to say, keep in mind that I am well read, and have studied history about as extensively as a non-professional can without becoming professional.

Of my favorite books that I’ve read is the wonderful series by Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God four book series. I’m a tremendous fan of Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I just completed A Patriots History of the United States. I love the book the Mothman Prophecies by John Keel, and all his further reporting of the strange and unusual. And I have read many of the popular modern news anchor books, such as Glenn Beck, Bill O’Rielly, and many of the others. I particularly enjoyed Arianna Huffington’s Pigs at the Trough. The point of this qualifying statement is that my reading range is varied and not party influenced. And it is extensive enough to make proclamations.

And the proclamation that I’m going to make is that the work in Star Wars, not just the films, but the books, is some of the best work of political science done in the history of mankind. And I say that as I pour over The Federalist Papers, and The Anti-Federalist Papers, and The Second Treatise of Government by John Locke 1667. In the Star Wars books, starting with the New Jedi Order series which started in 1999 and went on for 19 books, all the way up through Fate of the Jedi, the content while typically Star Wars is quite deep and universal in their exploration of political and human deficiencies.

How popular is it? Look at this tribute to John Williams, whom I think is the greatest musician there ever was, not just because he did the music for Star Wars, but most of the memorable, and inspirational music ever created. He will surpass Beethoven, Mozart and all others in the context of history.

Anyone not familiar with Star Wars, or who haven’t taken the time to work through the story line, let me bring you up to speed. The Jedi Knights are protectors of the Republic Government throughout a galaxy. The Jedi became complacent by their unchecked power. So a Sith Lord, an opposite of a Jedi in political motives, infiltrated the government, manipulated his way to become Emperor, and ruled the galaxy with an iron fist. The Emperor works with the Force, an unseen god-like presence that embodies all matter, much the way Jedi do, but otherwise is very similar to the motivations of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, or Alexander the Great in real historical concept. The Jedi are all but destroyed and are forced into hiding.

To give you an idea how popular Star Wars still is, here is Harrison Ford at the 30th Anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. (THE 30TH ANNIVERSERY! Most people don’t know who the president was 30 years ago, but they still know Star Wars)

Eventually the Jedi led by Luke Skywalker overtake the Emperor. They replace the government with the New Republic, and the problems commence. What kind of government do they replace the Emperor with, as many power hungry factions emerge to fill the power void, and what role do the Jedi play in that government? For the next 30 to 40 years the Jedi watch many governments rise and fall, while they try to build their role of protector of the galaxy back to a respectable position, all the while fighting political squabbles, the re-emergence of the Sith, the Jedi’s own insecurities in becoming too power hungry themselves, and the role of spiritualism in the whole enterprise.

This video from the Celebration V in Orlando Florida, August 2010.

The ongoing struggle of the Jedi v. government, and the Jedi v. Sith, and the Jedi v. self is a marvelous and highly sophisticated exploration of political science done against a science fiction back drop. It is because Star Wars is more than just pure entertainment, but at a deep subconscious level, food for the mind, that it has become such a memorable story that is so endured by the public to this day.

More from Celebration V.

And here is a word of warning to the entire political structure as it now exists. The world has moved to a place you cannot follow. With Star Wars, many similar science fiction stories have emerged. And now with the emergences of on-line gaming, whether it be Halo, or Gears of War, Modern Warfare, or Madden Football through Xbox, or Play Station or more advanced games like World of War Craft, and Star Wars on the PC game front, the youth, and in many cases the middle agers playing them, are starting to see through the smoke screens employed by politics for all of human history. Such tactics have worked in the past, and up to the last thirty years, were very effective. Even though the last 15 years seem to have made tremendous gains turning the republic of the United States into a socialist country with a European blueprint, this is an illusion. It’s the tail behind the head of the snake. The head is already moving in a different direction.

Here’s George Lucas talking about the Smithsonian exhibit in Washington D.C.

Sure, many will look at current personalities like Glenn Beck and call him seditious. But they are only looking at the symptom. Glenn Beck has emerged to fill a market need. He is not the market itself but has only emerged to supply to that market, and that is where many of the fools that cast blame in his direction go wrong. Beck is a product of the same generation I am, and we grew up asking questions, and all one has to do is read history to see that fiction has its roots in reality.

George Lucas on the Clone Wars, animated TV series on Cartoon Network.

And Star Wars has done much to ask the questions that a technological society like the one we currently have, needed to ask. And those questions are much bigger than Fannie and Freddy, or the government take-over of GM. They are bigger than government bail-outs, and Union deals with government officials.
One of the most sophisticated video games I’ve ever played in my life was the first Knights of the Old Republic. It is a Star Wars game, but I’d just as soon call it a training game for becoming a Jedi Knight. In that game you do everything from fighting Sith and other criminals that seek to harm the innocent, to helping solve crimes in complicated scenarios that most lawyers would find difficult. The goal of the Jedi is to see beyond the obvious, to the truth, and to fight for that truth. Because many criminal elements have hidden their crimes behind legitimacy, such as how our current government works. And that has worked for a long time, but it is changing as people think about the concepts discussed in Star Wars and other popular fiction.

Even though the game is several years old now, it still looks exciting.

Call them nerds, those people that sit and play games and read comic books and ramble on about The Force. Make fun of them because they don’t know much about sports and don’t play golf. But the world is changing. And politicians don’t understand it. They think the same old tricks will work, so they ignore and ridicule what they don’t understand.

Here is a big Star Wars Fan. Give him credit. At least he knows what makes him happy.

But even 50 years ago, there wasn’t anything like Star Wars out there for the public to digest. There was Plato’s Republic. There was Shakespeare. There was Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, there was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, all books that helped shape political policy even to this day. But Star Wars puts out a significant book at least twice a year for a couple of decades now, and each book goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of personal relationships and spirituality, against the conflict and impulse of politics. And that is a new element to the tapestry of human history, one that will have a significant impact on the future of our race.

I’m proud of my wife for reading over 57 Star Wars books. But this guy is doing a pretty good job.

Anyone that says entertainment can’t also be meaningful is not paying attention. Below is the preview of The Force Unleashed, another Star Wars game that I will be playing.

So while I explore my own ideas in the overmanwarrior concept, the work in Star Wars is where everything starts. And it is one of the most important stories that have ever been told. And the Star Wars stories are more important than anything the current president has to say, or the speaker of the house, or anyone that currently thinks they are the authority to the human race.

Rich Hoffman

www.overmwarrior.com