Anybody who casts an opinion contrary to the flow of progressive society has been deemed as “unhealthily angry” and treated as an old fogie stuck in the past. It is as if those who are being robbed of values that they desperately wish to see implemented in the world around them are supposed to enjoy being looted of everything they enjoy and not to be angry about it. The classic confrontation between Jeff Specoli and the teacher Mr. Hand has become the battle cry of our day—who owns your time, your opinions, and your life—is it you—or the collective will of society? Is it best to know things like the fogie Mr. Hand or to fall out of a van stoned like Jeff Specoli taking life as it comes without any sense of responsibility or direction? The world has made its decision—and it has chosen Jeff Specoli.
This is why it is important to understand that if you crave values dear reader—then you must be willing to stand alone—society will not back you. You will be alone in virtually every sector of society—and if you chose to stand for something these days—you will be considered a diabolical menace to the “surfer life” of the modern partier fresh from their campus adventures mired in marijuana smoke and valueless endeavor. If you want values, you will have to step away from those people to have them. You will have to stand against the current of the entire world who desires desperately to live the life of Jeff Spicoli and it will be a painful experience. Anger will be a dominate emotion.
Spicoli is part of a surfer culture that was brought to America in a time when communism was being marketed to a conservative public. The surfer life is a very socialist existence and in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it was shown to have merit compared to all the capitalist failures that the coming of age kids were experiencing. The parents were all goofs, the teachers stuffy caricatures of human bodies, and the main characters had to learn to let go and loosen up to fulfill their journeys through the plot. Jeff Spicoli was the creation of that pre-hippie lifestyle introduced to America through communist infiltration and KGB influence at a time where the actions were denied, but later proven factual. Our nation was invaded—our youth converted into Jeff Spicoli’s, and yet we are told that we aren’t supposed to be angry about it—that we should buy some weed–party—and loosen up.
But the real reason for the accusation toward anger is that those like Spicoli want to live off the efforts of collective society and to keep the interaction civil—they prefer that society gives them no resistance. They want to loot value from your back pocket dear reader and consume it from moment to moment without an eye to the future where all value runs out. A bank robber simply wants you to put your hands up and they wish to rob you without any fight. They simply want your money. They don’t want you to fight to keep it. And so it goes with the modern thief of social value, they don’t want to fight—they just want what you have—and if it is value—they want to consume it then “party” with you so that they can pass by you in the street without guilt.
For those who need social assimilation—they are at a disadvantage when it comes to a world run by Spicoli wanna-bes. They will always have the upper hand when it comes to a public setting because what they stand for is comfort. Today’s real leaders who stand alone for social value must be willing to sit alone in the rain—to distance themselves from the social pressure to be Spicoli and to defend values when the current of ancient communism wishes to wash them out to sea forever hidden by the ocean depths.
The problem is so grand that we now have Spicoli types in the White House and IRS. When the explanation is provided as to why all the IRS emails were destroyed, it sounds like Jeff Spicoli telling Mr. Hand why he was late to class. When the White House gives a press conference, it sounds like the dream Jeff Spicoli had about being a top-tier surfer partying with the Stones in London. And for those who find those explanations repulsive, we are just supposed to accept that Jeff Spicoli will be late to class, doesn’t care about any personal ambition for anything, and is a model citizen who just wants to smoke a joint and eat pizza. To such people of course anyone who finds that lifestyle repulsive will seem angry—because it is disgusting to see such people leech off the public with no ambition or curiosity about life outside of getting high and filling their bellies.
Jeff Spicoli will always be the role that the actor Sean Penn will be known for. Penn is an unapologetic communist and that personality came out so flamboyantly in the Fast Times of Ridgemont High role. The KGB may have created the hippie and surfer culture in California—but they could never have dreamed of what impact the Jeff Spicoli character would have on American youth and that virtually every young person who has seen that movie has in some way adopted the stoned beach bum into their lifestyle. Sean Penn did more to spread the valueless utterances of communism than most of the Russian efforts during the Cold War. And to those who see this erosion of value—they are not supposed to be angry—but accepting and ready to party.
That is why the road to a life of value will be a lonely one—and will be shouldered alone for quite a long time. It is more important than ever that those who are leaders—naturally—will separate themselves from these Jeff Spicoli types and remake the world. Of course we will be called “angry” but consider the sources—and be ready to shrug their opinions away for the value they really have. And it is also important to understand that our local Chambers of Commerce and the political machines of doom are now filled with Jeff Spicoli admirers and that their ideal of leadership is equivalent to ordering a pizza during Mr. Hand’s class.
Before I say what I will next keep in mind that I came from a time where it was very important to participate in sports activities so that a letter for your school jacket could be obtained. I’m sure this is still a concern with young people, but when I was growing up in the 80’s, this was extremely important—and I was on a search as to why. Having tremendous physical aptitude I was successful in any sport I wished to participate in, but elected not to after a run-in with my junior high coach who took the fun of sports and distorted it into a maze of social control. I didn’t approve of the tiered system of social development emerging in grade school where letters of extracurricular participation earned social merit. Those letters determined what kind of girls you could date, what kind of friends you had—and ultimately what type of job and personal life one might hope to obtain, so I was on a search as to why and to question that reality. The sales pitch from that junior high coach was that the more letters on a jacket, the higher on the pecking order of life you could obtain. I rejected this from the outset—which caused major conflict.
Looking for adventure that did not involve the public school a friend talked me into joining his High Adventure Explorer post—a kind of post-graduate Boy Scout program that was co-ed. It was just the kind of thing I was looking for—a quirky group ran by aerospace engineers, school teachers, and bank managers who could set the table for many weekends of adventure which I excelled at. I gave them many headaches and scares as my natural leadership ability and physical aptitude brought a wake of personalities behind me that could get into a lot of trouble. But within two years I was elected vice-president of the Cincinnati Dan Beard Council—which wasn’t exactly the direction I wanted to go in. It was just the current of events that carried a fate to that destination. Like most things when I believe too many people attach themselves to me directly I find a way to shake them off whether it is some controversy, conflict, or direct infusion of animosity freeing me from obligation into their affiliation. The reason why points back to that C.O.P.E. experience for which I am about to explain.
For a rainy spring weekend members of several local Explore Posts attended the Challenging, Outdoor, Physical, Experience otherwise known as (C.O.P.E.). It was a series of obstacles such as large walls, zip lines, and barriers designed to develop leadership skills through joint venture. I attended already being very familiar with Camp Friedlander where C.O.P.E. was held. For two consecutive prior years I attended the Explore Post Olympics they had each summer where all the area Posts competed against each other in events like swimming, softball, obstacle courses, and other acts of stamina. Among them were Police Posts and Fire Fighter Posts which began a rivalry that started way back then and persists to this day. Out of hundreds of area kids my friend and I as 16-year-olds dominated the obstacle course and other physical events against our rivals which paved the way for some very intense and positive experiences. So returning to the camp for a weekend of C.O.P.E. activity was an experience I looked forward to. The event involved pitching a tent and sharing the campground with the fellow participants who would endure the rigors of many challenges over the weekend. As the events proceeded over the next 48 hours natural bonding of relationships occurred and people participating formed friendships—except me, and a few of the same friends who attended the yearly Olympic event. We stayed to ourselves as we usually did—in spite of the bonding activity which drew the attention of the activity directors in a negative way.
On the second day after proving to be among the most physically proficient and creative problem solvers the camp directors had enough of my anti-social behavior. It was time for a celebration lunch to wrap up the weekend and the directors had planned a small feast cooked over Colman stoves and water jugs. Our campsite did have some picnic tables which were covered with a pitched tarp and all the cooking was done under them as a heavy afternoon spring rain rolled in. I socialized in a healthy way, but maintained my distance during the preparation of the food and when it came time to eat; there wasn’t enough space under the tarp to eat at a picnic table along with the other 25 participants. So a friend and I sat at a picnic table out in the rain. We took our food and sat down only shielded by a cowboy style hat which dripped water into my food consistently. But it was better than being cramped at a table with all the other participants trying to eat with no elbow room to move. But, that is exactly what the event directors wanted to see—everyone meshing together cozy and assimilated under their tarp eating together. Ridicule came in my direction for picking up my food to eat in the rain rather to sit with the rest of the group.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the other people, or that I was trying to take a particular anti-social stand—I just wanted to be comfortable and it was more enjoyable to eat in the pouring rain than to sit crushed together on a bench with other smelly adolescents after a weekend without showering in the woods. For me, the rain was a shower and I enjoyed the cleansing effect of the water. But for the event directors, I saw from them the same kind of animosity that I saw from the junior high gym teacher, kids who valued lettered school jackets and social mechanisms of assimilation as opposed to individual development. The longer we sat in the rain, the angrier the event directors became especially when their condemnation became harsher, but did not change my behavior. The more they said, the more I wanted to sit in the rain.
To this day when groups get together for drinks—I usually don’t go. When they conjugate for whatever reason, I am usually not a part of it. Now as then I would rather sit in the rain than huddle up with perfect strangers to stay dry, and I could spend entire weekends not speaking to anybody and be completely happy. I would say that I could handle months of that type of activity, but can’t conceive that it would ever be possible. People like me are always viewed as suspicious and called things like “lone wolf” and “anti-social” but what is behind those names is resentment that I put up barriers to being looted mentally by those who seek to do so. The camp directors knew that I was one of the stand-outs of the weekend leadership exercise called C.O.P.E. and they needed my buy-in for everyone else to assimilate together into their concept of a “team.” To do that they must get everyone to chase after the goals they set—whether it is letters on a school jacket to show how much extracurricular activity one has participated in—which tells all the girls that you are a socially acceptable male that has future earnings power—or whether the camp directors give you an award for outstanding leadership that can get you elected into higher office politically. The system only works if the best and brightest buy into their interpretation of reality. It takes people of value to endorse those activities. I knew early on that I was one of those people of value and I have never desired to give it away to those trying to curry favor. Not to be mean, or anti-social, but to preserve it for myself to use as I saw fit. In the world of the 20th century, and so far the 21st, that type of mentality is considered selfish—but I would call it sustaining. I learned at those leadership camps the opposite of what they intended.
At Camp Friedlander my Explore Post and those of the police and fire groups fought like cats and dogs. We raided their camps at night with harassment knowing that they were future authority figures and we beat them in the competitions handedly. They were always ran by parents who were cops and firefighters so it gave us great pleasure to throw bug spray into their campfires to explode unexpectedly—so to defy them as authority figures. Sure we got into trouble, but it was well worth it. They were always the most arrogant, so they were the most fun to beat. And I will always be grateful for the experiences I learned there even if it turned out to be the opposite of what the camp directors intended. Most people are taught early in their lives to fear the “lone wolf.” When a crazed gunman unloads bullets into a crowd, the first conclusion usually drawn is that the assailant was one of those dreaded “lone wolfs” who are “anti-social.” But the real fear of such people and anger which comes from that fear is that “lone wolfs” are simply people who refuse to be physically and intellectually looted. Sometimes the pressure of social castigation causes them to crack and they go on some rampage, or seek relief in suicide, or substance abuse. But the cause of that pressure is the invisible barrier between being willingly molested intellectually by the empty vessels of existence or fighting them. Real leadership is in understanding this, not in surrendering to those who wish to do the molesting.
About 15 years after my Camp Friedlander experiences I worked at Cincinnati Milacron and was moved to a repair facility in Lebanon, Ohio. I worked third shift and would spend gladly vast amounts of time alone. I got along well with the five or six other guys who worked with me on that shift, but when it came time for breaks, they all ate together, whereas I would sit and read my books alone. Often, I climbed to the top of a tall hill that was in the back of our facility and look out over the city while reading by a small pocket flashlight. This angered the other guys and they thought of my behavior as “anti-social.” They would say, “do you think you’re too good for us,” or “do you think your shit don’t stink.” In truth, they had hit the nail on the head—but I cared enough about them to not rub their nose in it. On my breaks, I had no desire to talk about drinking, bagging and tagging women, and uttering every other word as a curse term. I had personal higher standards than them, and didn’t wish to surrender those standards in exchange for their approval. Time with them was not worth what I lost in the process.
Leadership is in having values that are likely well out in front of everyone else and acting on them even when it means you have to stand alone. Being a leader is in sitting in the rain when social pressure says you must assimilate, or in joining with the other guys on an off-shift so that they don’t have to feel guilty about their deplorable values when they look at you. In truth they want to hear that you have an extramarital affair, or that you got drunk on a Saturday night because it releases them from judgment based on their own insecurities and behavior. There were times that I climbed up that hill to read my book knowing it brought great pain to my co-workers minds as they chugged away with cigarettes below knowing that I was out of their intellectual reach and that if they wanted to converse, they’d have to step up to my level, not me down to theirs. Their anger is that you—as a leader—set a value judgment that they were too lazy to meet.
At Camp Friedlander it was leadership to be one of the outstanding forces at C.O.P.E. in line to receive a special award from the directors, but to make a value judgment that the other kids stunk after a weekend in the woods and much physical activity without deodorant—and that sitting in the rain made more sense than being locked arm and arm with others just because the event directors wanted a picture of assimilation on the wall of the Friedlander mess hall to show how successful they were in training tomorrow’s leaders to follow directions. Leadership is not in making others feel good, following directions, or making people feel like they are just as good as you are by bringing down your standards to meet theirs. Being a leader is in either bringing others up to your level, or making them look at the contrast so that they might want to improve themselves—or even best you in natural competition. The gym teacher in junior high was wrong in his emphasis on school jacket lettering. Everyone one of those kids today is a mess because the values that were taught to them were not conducive to being the leader of a family—and their lives with spouses and children have disintegrated for the most part—universally. Years proved me right even though at the time the teacher conducted quite a smear campaign against me with terms like “lone wolf” and “social outcast” to coax me into his group assimilation. He wanted me to run track and be on his basketball team, and thought this was the best way to encourage me. The other members of C.O.P.E. who followed directions and ate under the tarp found their lives thereafter less than fulfilling. And the kid who ate with me in the rain more or less had a nervous breakdown a year later. The pressure of what I was teaching was just too great compared to the other forces in his life preaching compliance. We haven’t spoken in 26 years because he turned to drugs for relief which I am vehemently against. The third shift people all lost their jobs soon after I moved to another position and no longer carried the pace of that shift. Without my presence, those workers took longer smoke breaks, and were much less productive because there was nobody to set a standard for them to meet. Ultimately this is what a leader is—someone who sets a standard for others to live by—not one who can be moved through peer pressure to act against their observations.
I learned leadership at Camp Friedlander although not the way they designed it. When I was elected Vice President of the Dan Beard Council it wasn’t because I sat huddled under a tarp with smelly kids, or had a run of successes with my Explore Post in the summer competitions—it was because I was dating the girl whose father was on the council and she begged him for my inclusion. But the reason she liked me above the other competition was because I sat in the rain alone, and I was the first to jump over a wall, climb a tree, or trudge through a cave without a flashlight in neck high water. And every success I have had since that time to the present has been of a similar type. The world is hungry for leaders—but leaders must lead—and not get tricked into being followers—and that is exactly what is happening at the Leadership 21 courses.
I served all of one day as the VP of the Dan Beard Council. Looking back on it the times were murky and it wasn’t always obvious which way was correct. But what I knew I didn’t want was to become another board member bureaucrat so I sabotaged the relationships that put me in that position with malicious action to free me so that once again I was free to sit on top of a hill with my books and look out over a city without the expectations of others trying to pull me into some social context. I have done the same thing many times over the years when I get pulled too closely into the collective thoughts of others. Most notably recently would be the other members of No Lakota Levy. It takes leadership to know when gears need to be shifted and when action must take place. Leadership is not in getting along by yielding values for some perceptual greater good defined by the corrupt. Leadership is seeing and acting on events before anybody else can—and to see clearly often a leader must isolate themselves from the chaos of living and view unhindered the forces amassed on the battlefields of life and make decisions based on their solitary judgment. This runs counter to every other teaching method in public schools and government orthodox, but it takes a leader to understand it. It will be for others to confirm much later on. The pressures of being a leader are enormous and most who try will fail. Those are the “lone wolfs” who go on rampages or falter into drug induced stupors. But for those who make it, and survive, they are what make the world tick—and that cannot be taught in classes like Leadership 21, or C.O.P.E. It has to come from the heart and mind of a real leader and by nature, the masses are not equipped for the task. Instead, they stay hunched under a tarp waiting for the rain to stop while the leader waits for nothing and is a product of their own creation in spite of whatever forces might stand in their way.
One thing that is different from my view of bullwhip work and many of my friends who spend a lot of time working on technique with an emphasis on dance like choreography is that I find the whip most useful as a melee weapon in martial arts. In my novel The Symposium of Justice, the main character Cliffhanger uses bullwhips exclusively as his primary weapon to fight the forces of evil. Even when firearms and modern technology present options that might otherwise be considered more attractive—Cliffhanger uses two bullwhips to slice up and dominate his rivals with blistering effectiveness. My friend Gery Deer runs the only bullwhip instructional studio in the world, and his emphasis has always been non-combative instruction. So when the two of us get together we politely avoid the subject. Most bullwhip artists feel the same way that Gery does—and for good reason. There is a stigma that bullwhips are naturally violent weapons, so to promote the sport, they put emphasis on the non combative aspects of it. But, bullwhips by their nature are very violent, and are among the most flexible and versatile weapons ever created by a human being. And a guy who has made quite an extensive living teaching bullwhip combat techniques is Anthony De Longis.
Anthony has a long history with bullwhips and has done a good job of promoting them within Hollywood. Once while I was doing a short picture in Glendale, California which is Anthony’s hometown his name came up often by the stunt people and stunt coordinators. He is well-known within the Hollywood community as the go-to guy for bullwhips in film and he has worked with great passion to create interest in his spare time.
As a published writer, De Longis has contributed articles on the sword and the bullwhip to both martial arts and stage combat publications. These include articles on the Spanish Mysterious Circle, published in Fight Master, Inside Karate and Martial Arts Insider, and on sabre in Black Belt. Articles on the bullwhip have appeared in Inside Karate, Black Belt and Inside Stunts.
Off-camera, De Longis was Fight Director for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera from 1985 to 2003. He was Swordmaster / Stunt Coordinator for episodes 1-6 of The Queen Of Swords, and Swordmaster for Secondhand Lions.
He is also a professional stage movement and combat instructor, teaching in academic (UCLA Theatre Arts Dept. 1974-1993), small group and private settings seminars. He was inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame as 2008 Weapons Instructor of the Year and into the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame in 2009,
He shares with many of the people I most associate with a love of these kinds of skills—these western arts–and his impact to the industry deserves respect. He and I share specifically a love for Terry Jacka made bullwhips from Australia as most of the rest of the industry leans toward Joe Strain. There are others, but those two names are among the highest in the business. Samples of both their work can be found at Western Stage Props. However, both whip makers can be found at their individual sites.
But when it comes to combat and the bullwhip, I can think of no better weapon in the world to deal with an armed thug in melee combat. There isn’t a martial artist that I’ve met, or a weapon used in those arts which surpasses the ability of a bullwhip. They can be coiled up for easy transportation and stuffed into a bag for concealment, but can become a projector of danger as lethal as knives from a safe distance of 8’ to 10’. They can disarm a foe, or tie up their feet if they are trying to run away from a treacherous act, or bullwhips can choke an assailant to within inches of their life with the leverage needed to cut off the oxygen and blood to their brain with much more effectiveness than bare hands even among the strongest man.
Years ago I sold cars and spent a lot of time on the car lot waiting for customers to visit so I could sell them something. To kill time, I often practiced with my bullwhip in the back lot, which attracted the attention of the various lot techs and mechanics. On one particular occasion a couple of strong guys who thought they were particularly tough wanted to spar with me, their knives and baseball bats from the trunk of their car against my whip. Three of them against me and my bullwhip. It wasn’t even close. I was able to get the 12’ whip around me so quick that they couldn’t attack without getting hit. When they tried to come all at the same time I was easily able to go after the head of one of them to break their line and step out behind it keeping them from trapping me. If they elected to take the hit, it would have hurt them catastrophically—which was the intention because we were playing that kind of game. One of them finally got smart and stepped on the end my whip as it was so long, it took a lot longer to move around than some of the smaller 6’ whips. Once he had the end of the whip trapped, he thought he and his friends had me defenseless. But what they didn’t know was that I could then close ranks and wrap the whip around their necks and use the handle as a club—very similar to a blackjack.
My grandfather used to carry a police style blackjack in his pocket and considered this adequate to knock away most foes he met around town in times of crises. I used it a few times, but retired it quickly realizing that it was best to get distance away from your opponents as opposed to being close enough to use a small club. I replaced the blackjack with a bullwhip and have never since stopped. If an opponent has control of the end of the whip it essentially takes their hands out of the fight. This gives the bullwhip wielder the advantage in a conflict because they can then use the handle as a club against an unarmed victim.
I could tell many stories about bullwhips, and when it comes to combat work with bullwhips, Anthony De Longis is the current spokesman at the entertainment level. What he has been preaching is real, and really just begins to touch on the possibilities. But those possibilities are infinitely exciting when it comes to weapons and their effectiveness. In my opinion learning any other skill for any other weapon is pointless and a waste of time. There is nothing that I’d choose to use for self-defense than a bullwhip and that includes a firearm. Most firearms are shot at a close range and often miss their mark the first time—just because of the implication of what it means to shoot another person—death—long jail times, that kind of thing. The bullwhip will put an end to such threats within 1.5 seconds which is often the time it takes to decide to pull a trigger. The legal impact to such a self-defense measure is far less, and much more beneficial to staying out of court in the aftermath. Anybody who has been thinking of learning such a skill might want to visit Anthony out at his ranch to learn a thing or two about combat bullwhip techniques. That skill will likely save the life of you and those who mean you harm with the most effective way to remove threats under circumstances of coercion. His site can be reached by the link above.
From the culture of young people taught to not have any values or a code of ethics I’m sure a lot of the things I do seem to them the way they were presented in that video—they cited a Midwestern lifestyle, a grandfather’s bullwhip, and the desire to save America by using it in their plot. They are products of public school peer pressure shaped by the politics of our day—which is crumbling in virtually every social category. Of course they hold the belief that America doesn’t need a bullwhip wielding superhero from the Midwest—because they don’t yet see the crises before them.
After I wrote The Symposium of Justice I didn’t feel comfortable performing the normal role of author. Scholarly pursuits centered on philosophy were a pretty new concept for me and wasn’t exactly the direction I thought my life should go. I was used to performing actual physical feats, and doing things that were actually very dangerous. So it felt strange to write about things as opposed to doing things. In my neighborhood—bad things were happening—and the lag period between books was just too great to solve problems in real-time. When presented with those kinds of problems a person should use every skill they have to solve problems. The results often mean the revelation at the ending of Kick-Ass 2—that the world needs real people to do extraordinary things and to do it without the concealment of a mask.
As an author of a couple of books now and using this blog site to tackle problems in real-time instead of the long publication periods it takes to move a novel through the normal process of going to print most of what I have written can be confirmed by some real life experience. I have never been satisfied telling stories or providing content without experience lending perspective to my work. And to get experience you have to do things—as a person. Watching that satirical video I can’t help but feel sorry for those kids—like most young people they are finishing a long career of public school education shaped by a statist government and they believe they have the tools of assessment needed to enter the world. But they don’t—instead they will travel through the normal cycle that most people go through, they will start their lives voting for people like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (if they vote at all). They will then support all the liberal causes, “Global Warming,” economic socialism, gay rights over traditional marriage, and collective value over individual merit. By the time they hit their late 20s and early 30s they’ll discover that to have children of their own—they’ll become more conservative. At that time they will often support a presidential candidate like Mitt Romney (soft Republican), they’ll start becoming frustrated with larger government once they see their taxes increase once they purchase a home, and they’ll start thinking like a Republican after cutting grass in their own yards each week. They’ll spend their lives trying to make their bosses happy, will stare at their high school senior yearbooks wondering where all their friends went and will discover that they now have resentful teenagers who do not show respect for them during their 40s and 50s. The kids of course will be angry at their parents for not providing a good role model as their parents will spend most of their lives as social boot-lickers instead of admirable parents, and homeowners. During their late fifties their children will reconcile with them as those young people then realize that their liberal educations and salty outlook on life has not prepared them for the needs of their individual lives—and the parent and child will likely sit in a restaurant embracing each other on how mysterious life is and how screwed up their preparation for it was. In their 60s the parent will likely then become a real conservative who will want to see the world they are leaving behind restored in some fashion to what it was when they were children because they see how detrimental everything has become during their lifespan—and they will at that point regret it—hoping to improve that life while they still live. During their 70s and 80s those parents will find themselves abandoned by their children, overlooked by their grandchildren, and completely despondent to their great-grandchildren. They’ll watch in frustration as the world of politics spirals out of control in spite of all their efforts and the last days of their lives will shrivel away into oblivion. Not long after, nobody will visit their grave sites and history will forget them.
That cycle is a standard one for anybody who follows the shaped life of a statist government where the service and attention of that entity takes precedence over individuality. There is no other ending for most of the people in our society—who follow that path. My hope has been to maybe change the lives of a few so that such a miserable existence could be avoided and I use the skills I have in all their capacity to perform that task. The kids who made that video have no other path in their life but the one described above they will live it nearly word for word and there is nothing I or anybody else can do to help them. They are simply too far gone. Even in comedy, much about reality is revealed. Nothing is just a joke—everything has a cost associated with it—and you can’t cheat life without cheating yourself in some fashion.
Recently I told a bit of the story of the movie Bronco Billy by Clint Eastwood and for me, it taught me early on that people only get one chance to live their unique life the way they see fit. That choice may run counter to the culture of society—but the goal is to be authentic to your individuality—and to not yield to the social pressure of conformity. I made my choice long ago to live an authentically personal life in spite of the social pressures to serve a bind system led by sightless bureaucrats. I have lent my support to many causes of the day in real life, a spokesman against taxes, Tea Party groups, talk radio, business, and countless other endeavors—but I have never stopped being who I uniquely am even as those movements have ebbed and flowed. And it always comes back around to the term “Justice Comes from the Crack of a Whip” from The Symposium of Justice. In that novel the justice that most of us seek does not come from the laws of politicians, it comes from our own personal authenticity and those destinations can only be found by living life honestly even when the currents of civilization seem opposed to the task. To be the last living things left on a receding beach, you have to stand against the current because then and only then—will you discover what was always hidden from view. I communicated what I saw in my novel but felt I needed to dig deeper and to do that—it required real physical action instead of just observation to discover the concealment that holds many of life’s real answers. And a tool for getting at those answers can be obtained with a bullwhip if you know how to use them. A mask isn’t required.
Even though those kids thought they were making a satire of Kick-Ass at my expense, they obviously missed the point of the movie. But that doesn’t surprise me. It won’t hit them for another 25 years but eventually they will look at how they saw the world now and regret it. They’ll also learn that they were woefully wrong—America does need such a hero and that even though they changed the title to avoid direct slander “The Crack of Justice” the proper way to always frame the situation is that “JUSTICE COMES WITH THE CRACK OF A WHIP”—because it does.
At an annual dinner conducted by the participants of the Annie Oakley Western Arts Showcase there was much discussion about the new location in 2014 at York Woods in Ansonia, Ohio—just north of Greenville. The reviews of this new site were very favorable, but I wasn’t so sure when we were driving there for the first time. York Woods was founded in the mid 1800s and today is the site of the Greenville Steam Thrashers—a group dedicated to maintaining antique farm equipment. Once we arrived I said to my wife that this country was so much God’s that you felt like you could reach up and scratch his beard. It was amazingly remote and full of character. It was the first location of our annual Western Arts Showcase which has now been going on for well more than a decade that could justify a circus tent for our shows. Here is a video of the event:
We had the idea by seeing what kind of tent the drama group had up and for the first time considered that we should hold our future shows in just such a tent. In previous years our shows were in the Coliseum at the Darke County Fairgrounds about 10 miles to the south. Several times during the day weather threatened to alter our outdoor show, so it put in our minds the need for adjustments in the future if the York Woods site continued to be the destination.
We hoped that it would because there are things we could likely do at York Woods that we would never be allowed to do at the Fairgrounds, such as using firewhips and live ammunition for portions of our shows. I typically don’t perform for the exhibitions due to the many restrictions and my lack of interest in living within too many boundaries. I admire those who do, but I’ve always thought that our shows should incorporate more live fire—as was seen in one of my favorite movies, Bronco Billy. At York Woods the Annie Oakley Committee actually had shooting contests on site which greatly enhanced the event for the crowd. The Fairgrounds was in a fairly dense population area, but out in York Woods, there wasn’t much by way of residential living for at least a mile—maybe two. The farmland was vast and very open giving a truly ideal location for improvements to the Western Showcase.
We could continue to do the shows outside as we have for years, and just work around the weather, but it may well be time to have our own circus tent. Where space was always in short supply at the Fairgrounds, there was no shortage of space at York Woods giving our group for the first time some creative ability not seen before—so a small circus tent is something that we should pursue in the upcoming year.
To do this we are looking for corporate sponsorship that could pay for some of the costs and would be proud to feature all benefactors prominently. There are opportunities here that are unexplored for both parties, the Western Showcase participants and advertisers—so discussion would have to take place to make sure everyone gets what they want.
Interested parties should contact my friend Gery at:
As for my the movie Bronco Billy, it has always been a dream of mine to do for kids what the Clint Eastwood character in that film wanted to achieve. In that film Bronco Billy was operating his life upstream of the current in society and was functioning by a traditional set of rules that were grossly outdated even by the 1970s standards. It has always been a dream of mine to step into a circus tent like the one shown at the end of that movie made of American flags.
Americans for too many years have felt guilty for their history, their art, and their success. The tent at the end of Bronco Billy was a kind of statement of honor in preserving all those things. But it wasn’t real. Bronco Billy was just a movie character and the story was fictional. When the shooting was done, the tent was scrapped, and packed away forever forgotten, except on film. Well, 35 years after that film became a favorite of mine, I’m in the strange position of knowing really the only people left in America who have the ability to put on a show like what Bronco Billy did in that film. Gery Deer is the closest thing alive to Clint Eastwood’s fictional character in that movie and is the reason he and I have had a friendship that has went on for over a decade now.
The people in Gery’s shows are some of the most genuinely good people I have ever met and the gifts they have to offer the world extend well beyond the yearly shows at Annie Oakley’s festival each year in Greenville. But you have to start somewhere and it would appear that the York Woods location is the perfect spot for such an audaciously American fantasy. There were enough crowds at York Woods to fill the stands of a small circus tent and resurrect not in Las Vegas, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, or Orlando, Florida the lost arts of the cowboy, but Ansonia, Ohio the literal birthplace of Annie Oakley herself–one of the best trick shooters anywhere and a person all women should think of as a role model. Annie Oakley used to say, “Aim at a high mark and you’ll hit it. No, not the first time, or the second and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you’ll hit the bull’s eye of success.”
I read those words on the back of the brochure the Annie Oakley Committee passed out to visitors of their festival as I watched our group perform their knife throwing exhibitions, and whip tricks and thought of the possibilities if firearms and other—more audacious elements could be added to the show in York Woods in the future. And I couldn’t help but think of that Bronco Billy circus tent which has been bouncing around in my head for more than three decades now. There is no reason to aim high in this case because we have the firepower at many levels of hitting this target—a new target that was presented through a change that could very well be for the better.
These days it doesn’t matter if a show is ten miles outside of a town that is already many, many miles away from the rest of civilization. This is actually a plus, especially when the performers also have the ability of bringing the show to the rest of the world through “media.” Gery is a television producer—and he is also the producer of the only real Wild West Show left in the world. There are a few theme park types of acts out there, but nobody has the ability to pull the most talented people in the industry in for a real honest to goodness Wild West Show like Gery. All he needs to pull off the chance of a lifetime is a circus tent and a few sponsors.
I’ve been to a lot of Tea Party events and know quite a few people on the inside of the movement and never did anyone bring up the magnificent miniseries done by HBO on John Adams as essential material for studying one of the greatest founding fathers in American history. I assumed that the HBO produced event would be a typical progressive revisionist history that focused all too much on the hypocrisy of slavery and the general presentation as weak average men riding the coat-tails of history. I assumed that since Tom Hanks produced the show that it would be laced with progressive references. But……Laura Linney was in and was playing Abigail Adams—John Adams wife—so I put the series on a “to do” list for later. I liked Linney in the Mothman Prophesies so thought I’d give the show a shot at some future time when I got around to it. That time came six years later in 2014 when I saw that HBO was showing all seven parts of their mini-series on July 4th, so I set the DVR to record it which I eventually viewed a few weeks later when time allowed. It was nothing short of lustrously ostentatious intellectually and overflowing with a visual history into the period which took great pains to be authentic. Without question some will attempt to question the accuracy of the work which is based on the David McCullough books, Adams and 1776 but to compress so much history and character into a relatively short period of time art had to bridge the gaps for the viewer which the series was marvelously successful at. The set direction was monstrously good, the actors outstanding, but it was the writing that really overflowed with radiance. The series covered in a scope I had never seen in a film or series of any kind the lifestyles and politics of France, England and the budding United States very accurately with costume design and makeup that I can’t imagine a more truthful attempt ever attempted.
John Adams is a 2008 American television miniseries chronicling most of U.S. PresidentJohn Adams‘ political life and his role in the founding of the United States. Paul Giamatti portrays John Adams. The miniseries was directed by Tom Hooper. Kirk Ellis wrote the screenplay based on the book John Adams by David McCullough. The biopic of John Adams and the story of the first fifty years of the United States was broadcast in seven parts by HBO between March 16 and April 20, 2008. John Adams received widespread critical acclaim, and many prestigious awards. The show won four Golden Globe awards and thirteen Emmy awards, more than any other miniseries in history.
Part I: Join or Die (1770 A.D. – 1774 A.D.)
The first episode opens with a cold winter in Boston on the night of the Boston Massacre. It portrays John Adams arriving at the scene following the gunshots from British soldiers firing upon a mob of Boston citizens. Adams, a respected lawyer in his mid-30s known for his belief in law and justice, is therefore summoned by the accused Redcoats. Their commander, Captain Thomas Preston asks him to defend them in court. Reluctant at first, he agrees despite knowing this will antagonize his neighbors and friends. Adams is depicted to have taken the case because he believed everyone deserves a fair trial and he wanted to uphold the standard of justice. Adams’ cousin Samuel Adams is one of the main colonists opposed to the actions of the British government. He is one of the executive members of the Sons of Liberty, an anti-British group of agitators. Adams is depicted as a studious man doing his best to defend his clients. The show also illustrates Adams’ appreciation and respect for his wife, Abigail. In one scene, Adams is shown having his wife proofread his summation as he takes her suggestions. After many sessions of court, the jury returns verdicts of not guilty of murder for each defendant. The episode also illustrates the growing tensions over the Coercive Acts (“Intolerable Acts”), and Adams’ election to the First Continental Congress.
Part II: Independence (1774 A.D. – 1776 A.D.)
The second episode covers the disputes among the members of the Second Continental Congress towards declaring independence from Great Britain as well as the final drafting of the Declaration of Independence. At the continental congresses Adams is depicted as the lead advocate for independence. He is in the vanguard in establishing that there is no other option than to break off and declare independence. He is also instrumental in the selection of then-Colonel George Washington as the new head of the Continental Army.
However, in his zeal for immediate action, he manages to alienate many of the other founding fathers, going so far as to insult a peace-loving Quaker member of the Continental Congress, implying that the man suffers from a religiously based moral cowardice, making him a “snake on his belly”. Later, Benjamin Franklin quietly chastens Adams, saying, “It is perfectly acceptable to insult a man in private and he may even thank you for it afterwards but when you do so publicly, it tends to make them think you are serious.” This points out Adams’ primary flaw: his bluntness and lack of gentility toward his political opponents, one that would make him many enemies and which would eventually plague his political career. It would also, eventually, contribute to historians’ disregard for his many achievements. The episode also shows how Abigail innovatively copes with issues at home as her husband was away much of the time participating in the Continental Congress. She employs the use of then pioneer efforts in the field of preventative medicine and vaccination against smallpox for herself and the children.
Part III: Don’t Tread on Me (1777 A.D. – 1781 A.D.)
In Episode 3, Adams travels to Europe with his young son John Quincy during the war seeking alliances with foreign nations, during which the ship transporting them battles a British frigate. It first shows Adams’ embassy with Benjamin Franklin in the court of Louis XVI of France. The old French nobility, who are in the last decade before being consumed by the French Revolution, are portrayed as effete and decadent. They meet cheerfully with Franklin, seeing him as a romantic figure, little noting the democratic infection he brings with him. Adams, on the other hand, is a plain spoken and faithful man, who finds himself out of his depth surrounded by an entertainment- and sex-driven culture among the French elite. Adams finds himself at sharp odds with Benjamin Franklin, who has adapted himself to the French, seeking to obtain by seduction what Adams would gain through histrionics. Franklin sharply rebukes Adams for his lack of diplomatic acumen, describing it as a “direct insult followed by a petulant whine”. Franklin soon has Adams removed from any position of diplomatic authority in Paris. His approach is ultimately successful and was to result in the conclusive Franco-American victory at Yorktown.
Adams, chastened and dismayed but learning from his mistakes, then travels to the Dutch Republic to obtain monetary support for the Revolution. Although the Dutch agree with the American cause, they do not consider the new union a reliable and trustworthy client. Adams ends his time in the Netherlands in a state of progressive illness, having sent his son away as a diplomatic secretary to the Russian Empire.
Part IV: Reunion (1781 A.D. – 1789 A.D.)
The fourth episode shows John Adams being notified of the end of the Revolutionary War and the defeat of the British. He is then sent to Paris to negotiate theTreaty of Paris in 1783. While overseas, he spends time with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and Abigail visits him. Franklin informs John Adams that he was appointed as the first United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom and thus has to relocate to the British Court of St. James’s. John Adams is poorly received by the British during this time—he is the representative for a recently hostile power, and represents in his person what many British at the time regarded as a disastrous end to its early Empire. He meets with his former sovereign, King George III, and while the meeting is not a disaster, he is excoriated in British newspapers. In 1789, he returns to Massachusetts for the first Presidential Election and he and Abigail are reunited with their children, now grown. George Washington is elected the first President of the United States and John Adams as the first Vice President.
Initially, Adams is disappointed and wishes to reject the post of Vice President because he feels there is a disproportionate number of electoral votes in favor of George Washington (Adams number of votes pales in comparison to those garnered by Washington). In addition, John feels the position of Vice President is not a proper reflection of all the years of service he has dedicated to his nation. However, Abigail successfully influences him to accept the nomination.
Part V: Unite or Die (1788 A.D. – 1797 A.D.)
The fifth episode begins with John Adams presiding over the Senate and the debate over what to call the new President. It depicts Adams as frustrated in this role: His opinions are ignored and he has no actual power, except in the case of a tied vote. He’s excluded from George Washington’s inner circle of cabinet members, and his relationships with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton are strained. Even Washington himself gently rebukes him for his efforts to “royalize” the office of the Presidency. A key event shown is the struggle to enact the Jay Treaty with Britain, which Adams himself must ratify before a deadlocked Senate (although historically his vote was not required). The episode concludes with his inauguration as the second president—and his subsequent arrival in a plundered executive mansion.
Part VI: Unnecessary War (1798 A.D. – 1802 A.D.)
The sixth episode covers Adams’s term as president and the rift between the Hamilton-led Federalists and Jefferson-led Republicans. Adams’s neutrality pleases neither side and often angers both. His shaky relationship with his vice president, Thomas Jefferson, is intensified after taking defensive actions against the French because of failed diplomatic attempts and the signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts. However, Adams also alienates himself from the anti-French Alexander Hamilton after taking all actions possible to prevent a war with France. Adams disowns his son Charles, who soon dies as an alcoholic vagrant. Late in his Presidency, Adams sees success with his campaign of preventing a war with France, but his success is clouded after losing the presidential election of 1800. After receiving so much bad publicity while in office, Adams lost the election against his Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson, and runner-up Aaron Burr (both from the same party). This election is now known as the Revolution of 1800. Adams leaves the Presidential Palace (now known as The White House), retiring to his personal life in Massachusetts, in March 1801.
Part VII: Peacefield (1803 A.D. – 1826 A.D.)
The final episode covers Adams’s retirement years. His home life is full of pain and sorrow as his daughter, Nabby, dies of breast cancer and Abigail succumbs to typhoid fever. Adams does live to see the election of his son, John Quincy, as president, but is too ill to attend the inauguration. Adams and Jefferson are reconciled through correspondence in their last years, and both die mere hours apart on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (July 4th); Jefferson was 83, Adams was 90.
Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson role was particularly well cast. I have seen many attempts at Jefferson by actors, particularly the Sam Neil portrayal and this one had to be the best of all. The writers could have focused more on the slavery issues and been all caught up in the temperament of our modern times the way the current employees at Monticello do—focusing on the Sally Hemmings aspect of Jefferson’s life as though the man was a raging sexual lunatic. But these interpretations of Jefferson are assumptions based on the faults of modern man. Jefferson was an aristocrat—America’s first—but not in the traditional sense where it was handed to him by his ancestors. Jefferson was just intellectually superior and individually motivated and became an aristocrat by his own choice to be so which is an important distinction. The John Adams miniseries covers this in great detail. I thought the scene of Adams, his wife, and Thomas Jefferson in France witnessing one of the first hot air balloons was particularly captivating. Without the foursome, Adams, Abigail, Jefferson and Franklin there would not be an America today. Even with all the other characters involved, Washington, Sam Adams, Thomas Paine and all the other heroes of the Revolution—it was in essence the polar opposites John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who philosophically molded America with Franklin and Abigail gently directing the two men with warranted criticism and reality. If those four people were not a part of the process so profoundly slavery would still be practiced on earth as a common occurrence in developed countries, and America would have never gotten off the ground beyond the musings of an angry mob in Boston.
Even more so, Jefferson and Adams loved their wives. This I always knew but the HBO series delves into this love in a very mature way that is completely missing from most television dramas. I have now enormous respect for the way Adams loved his wife and wish with every bit of my own essence that such love and respect could return to our society—as I believe it is a fundamental building block of marital sanity. Without Abigail, John Adams would have spun into a haughty lawyer too smart for his own good, and without Adams, Abigail might have closed in on herself from introversion. The two complimented and built a life from friendship that was particularly respectful and free of controversy. Adams in all his time in France never yielded to their flamboyant sexuality—his intellectual position prevented it—which eventually won them over into supporting America in the war with much needed supplies.
But what was most striking was the love of intelligence which both Jefferson and Adams had their entire lives. It was their intellectual capacity and love of learning which launched the nation—not so much the acts of laws and men in times of war. It was the strength of their minds which was evident right up until the time of their deaths that carried America on its back and into the future. The HBO series never wavered from this and displayed it as honestly as possible without being disrespectful in the least. One particular scene in the series was when Adams traveled to England to meet with King George III as the first Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Of course the King was insulted and hostile toward the new nation—it was the first strike against his empire which would eventually crumble away. But when he heard Adams speak, he understood why America had formed and realized that the foundations of intellectual superiority had sprung in the New World and it was because of that—that he lost the Revolutionary War—and he was actually honored. He clearly expected some barbaric heathen which Adams clearly was not. It was a beautiful scene.
Adams was a Federalist while Jefferson was clearly not—he formed the first of the Republican Party of extremely small government minded politics. Adams shared with Hamilton and Washington the notion of much larger government controls which ran contrary to everything they founded the Revolution upon, and the HBO series handles these philosophic conflicts honorably—and honestly. Many of the same arguments permeate politics today, but the HBO series never picks sides—it just presented the information to the best of their ability—which again was quite good.
My opinion about public education—my anger at much of what we see in the world today is the failure of our governments and institutions to give people a proper understanding of history. We have failed as a society to study history properly so that we might have more enriched futures. We have allowed for the eradication and complete revisionism of history in many cases to protect religious belief, and political desire—so work like Adams on HBO are extremely rare, and important. All I have ever wanted in any debate over public education or politics in general is to have the kind of intelligent discussions that Adams and Jefferson had in their lives for the betterment of our times. The ignorance so worshipped these days simply retreats to mechanisms of control and manipulation to win an argument and get laws put in place that essentially steal from producers and give to the lazy—which is something both men would be appalled at. Tom Hanks has done a lot of good work over his many years as an entertainer some of it I enjoy, some I haven’t. He often takes up progressive causes—such as his work in Philadelphia and most recently Cloud Atlas—but in the end he might best be known as the producer of the HBO series Adams. Previously, it might have been Saving Private Ryan, or his role in Forrest Gump or for me his portrayal of Jim Lovell in Apollo 13. The HBO miniseries on Sam Adams will likely be the greatest chapter in the long history of Tom Hanks. I can’t imagine something so good being done by anybody in Hollywood unless someone of his caliber put a lot of love into the project as a producer securing the $100 million dollar budget to pull it off for a cable station—and then pulling in such great actors that had to live up to the high bar he had already set. I don’t think there is another producer out there capable of pulling off something like this any other way. It takes extremely good talent on all sides of the camera to achieve, and Hanks has set the high water mark clearly with this series.
If there is an opportunity to see the HBO series Adams on Netflix or by purchasing it on Amazon—you’d be well suited to do so upon conclusion of this reading. It is an essential part of our history and how America was formed and why. Historians can argue the details but really it is picking fly shit out of pepper when such an epic performance is put on display for public consumption with all the love of people who really poured their heart and souls into a project that would have otherwise never happened. I would go so far to say that not only should every American—child to senior citizen–see this series of movies, but every single member of the world—so that they can see the benefits of minds on fire that wish to only be quenched with freedom from tyranny and all the perils associated with it.
It’s not a problem for a person to have a home valued at $2,474,520 like Lois Lerner does—if they have earned it productively. However, Lerner and her husband have achieved much of their wealth as government parasites—meaning they live off the efforts of government specifically perpetuating the complexity of IRS law so that only they can translate the information to those willing to pay for the service. Both Lerner and her husband are attorneys who haven’t been discussed in great detail after Lerner was forced to step down from her IRS position in the wake of serious scandal for which she has been caught. As a family of attorneys Lerner understands how to manipulate the system because it was her type who helped shape that same system. For those types of government parasites which Lerner and her husband are but a small part—times are good—so good that they can afford a multi million dollar home essentially living as second-handers. But before understanding why they are such prescribed leeches it is important to study a bit of their background.
Lerner began her career in government as a staff attorney in the Honors Program at the United States Department of Justice. She served as a Special Assistant in the U.S. Attorney’s Office where she was lead counsel handling felony and misdemeanor prosecutions. In 1981, Lerner moved to the Federal Election Commission, serving as the Assistant General Counsel for Enforcement, and ultimately as the Acting General Counsel.[1]
Lerner is a past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) and an active member of the Humane Society of the United States where her efforts in performing pet rescues necessitated by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes were widely acknowledged.
Lerner began her IRS service in 2001 as Director Rulings and Agreements in the Exempt Organizations function of TEGE. [2] In January 2006, she was selected as Director Exempt Organizations. In this capacity, Lerner led an organization of 900 employees responsible for a broad range of compliance activities, including examining the operational and financial activities of exempt organizations, processing applications for tax exemption, providing direction through private letter rulings and technical guidance and providing customer education and outreach to the exempt community.[3]
On May 23rd, 2013 Lerner was placed on administrative leave. Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel selected Ken Corbin as the acting director of the exempt organizations division. Corbin was the deputy director of the submission processing, wage, and investment division.
In 2014, Lerner was held in Contempt of Congress in connection with the 2013 IRS controversy.[4][5] The resolution, H.Res. 574, was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on May 7, 2014 by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).[6] The bill was considered on May 7, 2014, and passed in Roll Call Vote 203 with a vote of 231-187.[6] All of the Republicans voted in favor of the bill, along with six Democrats.[7] The resolution holds Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a congressional hearing.[8] Rep. Steve Stockman filed a motion on July 10, 2014 that, if enacted by the House, would direct congressional police to arrest Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress.[9][10]
Lerner is married to Michael R. Miles, Esq., Partner, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP.
Michael Miles provides insurance companies with creative solutions and tax planning strategies for their corporate, insurance, and reinsurance transactions, including cross-border transactions and corporate restructurings. Michael also advises on consolidated return issues, the general taxation of corporations and shareholders, the taxation of regulated investment companies, and the application of withholding rules (including FATCA). He has substantial experience in advising clients on the tax consequences of proposed mergers and other reorganizations, reinsurance transactions, stock and asset acquisitions, and dispositions, distributions, and redemptions.
Before joining Sutherland, Michael served as an attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). He has more than 30 years of experience in handling federal tax controversies, first for the IRS and now for the firm’s corporate and individual clients, as well as substantial experience in obtaining rulings for clients on corporate tax and other matters and in practicing before the IRS.
Knowing these things about Lerner and her husband it becomes clear that their combined incomes exist primarily from second-hand sources—living off the efforts of others. They do not build things, or behave in a productive manner—one was an IRS insider while the other provided tax strategies to a complex code. Like many in the Washington D.C. beltway they are a professional couple making vast sums of money as second-handers. They directly benefit from the efforts of others then redistribute those efforts directly into their pockets. This is how they came to own such a nice home in Montgomery County outside of Washington. It wasn’t earned by productive enterprise—but rather parasitic leverage—(insider knowledge gained by political connections.)
Montgomery County Home:
Owner: MICHAEL R MILES & LERNER G LOIS Total land value: $747,870 Total value for property: $2,474,520 Total assessed value for property: $2,474,520 Base area of building: 6,500 square feet
Lerner only became a household name when she was caught in the current IRS scandal and set up to take the fall so that the rest of the IRS could skate away unharmed as her lawyer husband and past legal experience handled things behind the scenes. Politicians on the Hill benefit from the same second-hander strategies so when the cameras are turned off, there is little will to actually throw Lerner in jail or punish her in any way. The essential reason why is that they are all guilty of the same type of behavior. All around Lerner’s $2,474,520 home are similar properties owned and operated by carbon copies of Lois and her husband, Michael—professional parasites that live off the efforts of others. Once they extort all they can from those sources they move on to new clients to extract all they can from them—until that too is gone, and this process continues until they either run out of clients, or find themselves in legal trouble and having to flee behind the curtain of protected BAR associations and their congressional friends who reside there with them.
When it is wondered what is wrong with Washington D.C. all one need to do is look at Lois Lerner and her husband to know what it is. They represent a deep fault in the current American political system overrun by lawyers, con artists and general second-handers avoiding any productive enterprise aside from the theft of other people’s money. Lois Lerner is not unusual—she is common in her neighborhood—there are carbon copies of her on nearly every street. The only reason that anybody knows about her is that she was the one who got caught. Many of the others are still unseen because their efforts are not so easily detected. But they all have nice homes like the one that Lerner has because they achieve the wealth to buy them from other people’s money as service to government has paid them a healthy ransom and allowed them to live a pirate’s life only with a suit and tie to hide their true identities.
There was a lot of Star Wars news this past week as the world revs up for the most recent reports from that line of mythology originating during the 1970s. As I received news from Lucasfilm about their schedule at Comic Con, San Diego, a fan from Germany did a brilliant YouTube video showing vehicles from the Empire being unloaded at a foreign airport. It was a remarkable short film and showed how easy it is for anybody these days to make wonderful visual effects—putting story telling within reach of the entire world. Even more remarkable was that the creator was not an American, but was German—meaning that the very American Star Wars mythology was important enough to him to create such a video which would have taken a considerable amount of thought and time.
But most remarkable of all was the report from Kevin Smith—the filmmaker from the Clerks movies and Red State who was given permission to visit the Star Wars Episode 7 set by invitation of J.J. Abrams. Smith is personal friends with Ben Affleck and a number of notably progressive Hollywood types, but he is also a very pop culture lover of comic books and heroic endeavor. If he and I had a dinner conversation together it is likely we would agree on nothing related to politics, but everything regarding comic books and Star Wars which is the magic of that particular mythology.
I was not a fan of Smith’s movie Red State—which felt to me like a Hollywood shot at life in the Midwest. Most of the antagonists in the film were perverted versions of the type of characters Hollywood views as “Bible Thumpers” so I nearly ignored the report that Kevin Smith gave after his visit to the Star Wars set. However, under the recommendation from some of the filmmakers from the Atlas Shrugged set I gave it a chance and was glad I did. Smith gave a remarkably honest breakdown not only of what he saw there—but in how it made him feel which reaches to the heart and soul of the entire Star Wars movement.
Star Wars is a movement, philosophical, political, and religious—it is a culture building exercise that extends far beyond simple entertainment. Cultures throughout the world have spent decades now having values removed from them leaving them empty. The causes have been varied—but the results are massive cases of emptiness leaving people desperately hungry to fill themselves with something of value. Star Wars created by George Lucas was intended for children to provide value and this hunger for all things Star Wars is most reflected in the excitement level of grown adults who are rediscovering their inner—long lost child through new movies and products.
I promised my children and wife when we all saw the movie Hook together by Steven Spielberg that I would never become lost like the Robin Williams character and lose my inner Peter Pan. And I have never broken that promise to them—I understand all too well the character of Peter Pan. I live the life of Pan with every breath that I take. With that said, the bedroom of my wife and I looks like a Star Wars toy section at Target. Looming over our bed is a large Millennium Falcon and located around our bedroom are several different versions of that same ship in various sizes. I know what Star Wars means to me because I have never left that part of my life behind—instead I incorporate it seamlessly into my mature life in the way that Peter Pan had to reconcile at the end of Hook.
I’m sure that J.J. Abrams invited Kevin Smith to the Star Wars set to generate positive publicity ahead of Comic Con in San Diego and to put some of the negative rumors about Harrison Ford’s broken leg—which is healing, to rest. Ford is doing what he has always done—he’s fighting back to health so he can complete the film. (Harrison Ford suffered an ACL tear during the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and ruptured a disk in his back during the filming of Temple of Doom. In both cases he hit the weight room and recovered and finished his film as the star. He is doing the same thing as a 71-year-old man for Episode 7. That is what makes him great and a man’s man.) Smith came to the set and reported in a video what he saw which was captivating, but what impressed me most was his sense of understanding of what happened to him when he stepped to the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp.
It was an interesting admission that Kevin Smith made when he declared that everything he had been—as an adult—was a corrupt caricature essentially shaped by the times of society’s impression upon him. He was very honest about stating that when he visited the Star Wars set he returned back to his childhood which for him was a treasure—as it is for most people. His intense revelation about crying at the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp says a lot about our culture. It is that lost Peter Pan persona that most of us seek to regain.
So the question must be asked—why do we give up that treasure in our teenage years? Some of the most courageous among us regain that persona later in life once we become grandparents—and too old to care what people think of us. Once we lose our sex appeal, our hair, our nice skin, and the ability to impress others with our appearance there is once again a chance to become childlike with the wisdom of years of learning to support ourselves. Kids don’t care what they look like, they just like to play and have fun, and this is a trait that we should not give up on as adults.
I never have—I promised my family I never would, and I never will under any conditions. Every day in my life is like the end of the Robin Williams version of Peter Pan in Hook. I skipped right over the crises period and just went from childhood to adulthood with the same enthusiasm. What Kevin Smith, Seth McFarlane, and I all have in common is that even though we differ dramatically in our politics—we share emphatically a love of Star Wars for the same reasons—as the mythology is a direct link to the energy of childhood which should never be lost to any adult anywhere.
Kevin Smith obviously would have been a happier person if he didn’t start swearing, doing drugs, and adopting progressive causes. This is why our politics is different essentially. He would have been happier if he had kept that inner child all through his life and dropped the cynicism of adulthood. He shouldn’t have had to cry when he stepped to the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp. But, his friend J.J. Abrams probably did Smith a huge favor on a personal level by bringing him to the set to see the Star Wars shoot in person. It is good that Kevin Smith had that experience and reported it so honestly—because this is part of the healing qualities that I have spoken about so often regarding Star Wars. The culture that will come from all this will leave us all much better off than we are today—because the stories are about values that the inner child in all of us crave so deeply. The cynical adult in us has yielded to the pressures of existence which imposed compromises of those values leaving us shells of ourselves to live as caricatures of our former dreams—which is the essential story of Hook.
Disney will surely give the rest of the world the same opportunity Smith had when they build a full scale Millennium Falcon in Orlando, Florida for visitors to their theme parks. It will be a common sight to see grown adults weeping at the top of the ramp in the same way that Kevin Smith did because the long suppressed magic of childhood will come rushing back to them in that instant. It’s not immature to feel such things–it is actually rational to reacquaint an adult life with the foundations of their belief systems formed during childhood. For many people, Star Wars is the clearest representation of value that they have and is why so many fans go to such elaborate measures to touch that mythology any way they can, even if it is in a short film remarkably done like the one at the German airport. There have been few people who have put their finger on the pulse of the Star Wars movement better than Kevin Smith did when he so honestly reported his visit to the Episode 7 set.
There is no shame in rediscovering the Peter Pan in all of us—the eternal youth forever thoughtful of the hopes and dreams of discovery and imagination. When those things are lost, we are robbed of much—and it is always good to revisit these traits which we are born with. It has only been recently when there was a mythology like Star Wars providing the mechanism through simple sight of a movie prop that could make a grown man cry like a baby at the purity of the emotion—the long lost hopefulness of childhood and the values of the uncompromising dreams of youth.
Parents and teachers in Warren County want more money and better benefits for the Mason City School District.
The Mason Education Association, which represents 650 educators, has been negotiating a new employment contract since April. Mason teachers say they’re not only concerned about money and benefits but also concerned about cuts to academic programs and facilities.
The union also declared a “no confidence” position in superintendent Gail Kist-Kline.
The district meanwhile says it’s hopeful that negotiations will continue during the summer months, and a contract settlement will be reached before the beginning of the school year.
According to school board members, Dr. Kist-Kline was hired following a levy failure, and asked to lead during a time of economic challenge that required the district to improve efficiency and make difficult decisions.
The story continued with the MEA (Mason Education Association) threatening to go on strike and late in the afternoon on July 8th 2014, a contract agreement was reached which will then go to a vote by the union members. Teachers all across Ohio rejoiced as one of the wealthiest districts in that state had proven that it was once again ripe for pillaging. The entire story of how the teacher’s union in Mason threatened a hostile action—work stoppage—preventing parents who pay the taxes there from retaining their free baby sitting service at the end of summer, forced the payment of ransom which were pay increases. It was all too reminiscent of an old pirate story about Blackbeard’s blockade of the Charleston harbor in 1718. That old story about pirate action was essentially the same as the modern story of the MEA in Mason, Ohio 2014.
Edward Teach (also Edward Thatch, c.1680—22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. Although little is known about his early life, he was probably born in Bristol, England. He may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne’s War before settling on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined sometime around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but toward the end of 1717 Hornigold retired from piracy, taking two vessels with him.
Blockade of Charleston
By May 1718 Teach had awarded himself the rank of Commodore and was at the height of his power. Late that month his flotilla blockaded the port of Charleston (then known as Charles Town) in South Carolina. All vessels entering or leaving the port were stopped, and as the town had no guard ship,[40] its pilot boat was the first to be captured. Over the next five or six days about nine vessels were stopped and ransacked as they attempted to sail past Charleston Bar, where Teach’s fleet was anchored. One such ship, headed for London with a group of prominent Charleston citizens which included Samuel Wragg (a member of the Council of the Province of Carolina), was the Crowley. Her passengers were questioned about the vessels still in port and then locked below decks for about half a day. Teach informed the prisoners that his fleet required medical supplies from the colonial government of South Carolina, and that if none were forthcoming, all prisoners would be executed, their heads sent to the Governor and all captured ships burnt.[41]
Wragg agreed to Teach’s demands, and a Mr. Marks and two pirates were given two days to collect the drugs. Teach moved his fleet, and the captured ships, to within about five or six leagues from land. Three days later a messenger, sent by Marks, returned to the fleet; Marks’s boat had capsized and delayed their arrival in Charleston. Teach granted a reprieve of two days, but still the party did not return. He then called a meeting of his fellow sailors and moved eight ships into the harbor, causing panic within the town. When Marks finally returned to the fleet, he explained what had happened. On his arrival he had presented the pirates’ demands to the Governor and the drugs had been quickly gathered, but the two pirates sent to escort him had proved difficult to find; they had been busy drinking with friends and were finally discovered, drunk.[42]
Teach kept to his side of the bargain and released the captured ships and his prisoners—albeit relieved of their valuables, including the fine clothing some had worn.[43]
The behavior of the MEA was essentially of the same morality as Blackbeard’s seizer and extortion of Charleston. Blackbeard’s actions were designed to exploit the weaknesses of the governor; the MEA was designed to exploit the weaknesses of the superintendent of Mason schools. Both groups used force and fear to obtain wealth—the Blackbeard pirates used fear of physical violence, the Mason teachers’ used the fear of work stoppage by refusing to perform contracted obligations as employees of the state of Ohio. There is no real difference between the piratical acts of Blackbeard or the MEA.
So why weren’t the Mason teachers arrested for their piratical acts instead of rewarded with more money? Because the pirates run the government in 2014 unlike in 1718. The only difference between the MEA and Blackbeard is that they are now the lawyers, legislators, and union leaders who have infiltrated the law to have easy access to the plunder of the tax payers. Pirates have changed their tactics over the years—instead of violence and blockades, they just gained a government backed service—like education—and threatened to take that service away unless they obtained their desires. The ideal of the blockade of education services through a labor strike and Blackbeard’s extraction of medical supplies from the Governor of Charleston are the same because tax payers have no other option. There are no other schools for their children to attend just as there was no other way out of the harbor of Charleston for the citizens to embark on any kind of trade by sea. So Blackbeard had the city by the throat and used it to his advantage just as the MEA had Mason by the throat regarding education. The intentions were extortion to fulfill the desires of piracy. The only difference is that these modern pirates in the MEA were backed by the law which is an evolution from the days of Blackbeard. But the intentions were the same—fear, power, and plunder at the expense of others.
So if anyone dared wish to see examples of modern piracy, don’t look to the South China Sea or the dangerous waters off of Somalia—just look in Mason, Ohio at the members of the Mason Teacher’s Association and you will see pirates just as vicious and greedy as Blackbeard.
(Reuters) – So you say all you want to do is to take a few minutes to sit down and think without anyone or anything bugging you? Maybe that is true. But you might be in the minority.
A U.S. study published on Thursday showed that most volunteers who were asked to spend no more than 15 minutes alone in a room doing nothing but sitting and thinking found the task onerous.
“Many people find it difficult to use their own minds to entertain themselves, at least when asked to do it on the spot,” said University of Virginia psychology professor Timothy Wilson, who led the study appearing in the journal Science. “In this modern age, with all the gadgets we have, people seem to fill up every moment with some external activity.”
In some experiments, college volunteers were asked to sit alone in a bare laboratory room and spend six to 15 minutes doing nothing but thinking or daydreaming. They were not allowed to have a cellphone, music player, reading material or writing implements and were asked to remain in their seats and stay awake. Most reported they did not enjoy the task and found it hard to concentrate.
That information may seem extraordinary, but it’s really not—rather it is consistent with general human behavior and is caused by two basic roles that individuals evolve into as they mature into adulthood. People will become either a producer type personality—who makes things from self-initiative and are quite rare in the world or they will become a second-hander, a person who essentially lives through others. An example of second-hander behavior would be the type of person who dates a beautiful woman because of the prestige of being seen with her might provide. An example of a producer would be a person who dates a beautiful woman because they personally enjoy her. The same could of course be applied from women to men, cars, clothing, homes, food—just about every category of human endeavor. The typical “gold digger” personality from women who marry for money would fall into this category versus the woman who marries for “love.”
These behavioral conditions can actually be seen on any playground in the world where children play. Future producers are the kids who are the first to climb to the top of the monkey bars, or help a kid stuck on the slide whose nerve has left them as they descend. Most of the kids will reside in the safety of numerical superiority watching the producers be the first to climb to the top of a slide, or crawl under a strange obstacle, or swing across a crevice. Once they see the safety of the task, they will then follow—gaining assurance from the leader—the producer.
The differences in creating these personalities come directly from the parents. If a parent lets children gain self-sufficiency by doing things on their own at the earliest possible moment—then there are favorable odds that a child will develop into a producer. But most parents coddle children and enjoy caring for them as dependents—as the behavior provides meaning to lives of parents who are otherwise insecure about their roles in existence. So too long parents carry children on their hips, feed them too long, and help them up when a child should learn to climb on their own stunting the growth of the young minds into the role of a second-hander. They learn as children to live through their parents. As older children they live through their peers. As adults they live through the rest of society.
This is why as adults they don’t know what to do with their own thoughts and would rather be electrically shocked than to think on their own for 15 minutes—a second-hander must get their next thinking actions from a producer otherwise they can’t function. It would be the producers who would happily sit for 15 minutes or more thinking quietly. The second-hander needs music made by someone else, television made by someone else, reading material made by someone else, video games made by someone else, etc—in order to have thoughts put into their head. With those things removed—they are terrified at the lack of thought in their minds and would gladly endure great amounts of abuse to have that sense of terror removed from them.
As has been declared on many occasions at this site—except without the direct correlation—public education systems are in the business of making second-hander children who will grow up to become second-hander adults. The entire ordeal of public education is primarily focused on building these types of minds which works well for consumerism—but not so great for capitalism as industry and invention are created by producer type personalities. Producer type children tend to not do so well in public school as the system is not geared to develop their skill sets—so they become frustrated. This is also why homeschooled children do better generally than publicly taught children, because homeschooled children are taught to be producers as opposed to second-handers.
As a test dear reader if you consider how something might make you look, or how others might think before you do something—you are functioning as a second-hander. If you do a task because of the curiosity of doing it when no eyes are upon you and enjoy thinking alone with no input from the outside world—then you are thinking as a producer. But it is very clear on the playground of children who will be who. The future lives of all those young people can be predicted just watching children play. You can see who will have marriage difficulties, who will have nervous breakdowns when their cars won’t start, who will bounce aimlessly from job to job—just by watching children play. You can also see who will be the future inventors, leaders, and wealthy elite—not because they are greedy, or vicious—but because they are often the first to climb to the top of the monkey bars, and will not hesitate to push bigger kids out-of-the-way to be the first to go down a slide.
What the test reported by Reuters above says—which is supposed to be shocking—is that public education systems and parents in general have successfully built a human race of second-handers who are all waiting for someone to tell them what to do next. It therefore should not be a surprise when there is so much apathy in the world. It’s not because people are bad—or stupid—it’s because they have been taught to be second-handers who cannot act until told what to do. It is for society to determine if this is acceptable.
Speaking personally, it isn’t for me. But then I’m the kind of person who could spend weeks alone in a room with everything turned off alone with my thoughts—and be perfectly happy.
The Overmanwarrior 