Over the Memorial Day weekend there were a lot of issues discussed among family and friends–the sports scores of the local baseball teams, the Hockey playoffs, the NBA playoffs, how well the respective NFL teams did in the recent draft, the latest summer box office films and the general emptiness of economic purchases. But the extent of discussion about what is really important, topics like politics and philosophy, only general rumblings about President Obama made the cut. Over the weekend, my father-in-law turned 70 and we wanted to treat him to the movie Godzilla. Along the way to the theater, from his very affluent neighborhood and the surrounding area which is well above average in per capita income—economic activity was vibrant. Restaurants were full, stores were packed, and the movie house was crowded—there was no trace of the generally terrible economic news which is about to hit America. All seemed well.
After the movie there was a very nice party for my father-in-law who loved the Godzilla film and was enjoying his birthday to a live blue grass band hired for his personal entertainment. I watched the party goers closely, mostly avoiding the devastating news that the American economy is nowhere near as good as it appeared. There is trouble coming, which is in evidence by the fact that the news no longer covers the terrible events of Greece, Italy, or Cyprus, because there is no end in sight for them to prosper economically. Their financial crises did not go away—they just stopped being covered—and the same fiscal cliff is headed for our shores in North America.
I thought of an article I had just read by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com which did a good job of painting a picture of how bad the economy actually is caused in part by the Federal Reserve quantitative easing practices. While reading it I thought of my father-in-law who has been fiscally very successful and came a long way in his life, and he has seen it all. He saw the post World-War II boom, the communist years of the 60s, the economic destruction of the 70s, the vibrancy of the 80s, and 90s, and the sharp decline of American economic power since the terrorist acts of 9/11 occurred in 2001. It would be important to note that the intent of those attacks was to shatter not just the symbol of American capitalism—The World Trade Center—but the actual economy itself. Now $17 trillion dollars in deficit spending later the picture is clear—America will not recover easily from this economic tsunami. When one does the math, if America spent all of the profit of its GDP for the next 20 years on reducing the deficit—it would not succeed. The enemies of America know it. Most people are vaguely aware of it—but they avoid naming it as thought by refusing to acknowledge its existence, a different reality will present itself. But it won’t. To illustrate this condition I refer you dear reader to Brandon Smith’s article—at least a very relevant portion of it. The whole article can be seen at the link below.
On the surface, the economic atmosphere of the U.S. has appeared rather calm and uneventful. Stocks are up, employment isn’t great but jobs aren’t collapsing into the void (at least not openly), and the U.S. dollar seems to be going strong. Peel away the thin veneer, however, and a different financial horror show is revealed.
U.S. stocks have enjoyed unprecedented crash protection due to a steady infusion of fiat money from the Federal Reserve known as quantitative easing. With the advent of the “taper”, QE is now swiftly coming to a close (as is evident in the overall reduction in treasury market purchases), and is slated to end by this fall, if not sooner.
Employment has been boosted only in statistical presentation, and not in reality. The Labor Department’s creative accounting of job numbers omits numerous factors, the most important being the issue of long-term unemployed. Millions of people who have been jobless for so long they no longer qualify for benefits are being removed from the rolls. This quiet catastrophe has the side bonus of making it appear as though unemployment is going down.
U.S. Treasury bonds, and by extension the dollar, have also stayed afloat due to the river of stimulus being introduced by the Federal Reserve. That same river, through QE, is now drying up.
While many people assume that the stimulus measures of the Fed are driven by a desire to save our economy and currency, I see instead a concerted program of destabilization which is meantto bring about the eventual demise of our nation’s fiscal infrastructure. What some might call “kicking the can down the road,” I call deliberately stretching the country thin over time, so that any indirect crisis can be used as a trigger event to bring the ceiling crashing down.
In the past several months, the Fed taper of QE and subsequently U.S. bond buying has coincided with steep declines in purchases by China, a dump of one-fifth of holdings by Russia, and an overall decline in new purchases of U.S. dollars for FOREX reserves.
With the Ukraine crisis now escalating to fever pitch, BRIC nations are openly discussing the probability of “de-dollarization” in international summits, and the ultimate dumping of the dollar as the world reserve currency.
The U.S. is in desperate need of a benefactor to purchase its ever rising debt and keep the system running. Strangely, a buyer with apparently bottomless pockets has arrived to pick up the slack that the Fed and the BRICS are leaving behind. But, who is this buyer?
At first glance, it appears to be the tiny nation of Belgium.
While foreign investment in the U.S. has sharply declined since March, Belgium has quickly become the third largest buyer of Treasury bonds, just behind China and Japan, purchasing more than $200 billion in securities in the past five months, adding to a total stash of around $340 billion.
The article may be dismissed by Keynesian economists as the work of conspiracy theorists but it is actually quite true in content. Power is being divided up throughout the world and America is not being considered a player in that effort. Rather the very rich, who already know of the coming crises have mostly sold off their investments in America so they can capitalize off its fall from power. Belgium, as a small country is suddenly interested in American Treasury bonds? This is no accident.
Sadness washed over me at the event for my father-in-law as the sun set on the horizon and the blue grass music played on and darkness shrouded everyone listening, and talking. The metaphor was a proper one, and soon in America what used to be clear in the light of day and taken for granted would be cloaked in darkness and difficult to see without assistance. The economic vitality that virtually everyone was taking for granted was coming to an end, and nobody wanted to know it—even though they can feel the chill in the air of a coming darkness in American history.
The economic collapse is a military strategy, not a purely fiscal accident—and every American celebrating Memorial Day should see it for the threat that it is. This attack is not with tanks and troops, but of quantitative easing and Treasury bonds—sold to Belgium of all places—and the chanting fools of old Europe who wish once again to take their homeland and make it the most relevant place on earth—once America is out-of-the-way and no longer in charge.
Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property – until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
Those who love the status quo enjoyed the primaries of May 2014. After failing a school levy in November, Fairfield got their money six months later putting the issue on the ballot again and having next to nobody show up to vote. Cindy Carpenter kept her Butler County Commissioner seat, the Butler County police got their money in Liberty Township and across Ohio 90% of all school levies passed—again due to extremely low turnout. Several Tea Party Central Committee seats were thrown back to the GOP loyalists and the biggest GOP representative of all, John Boehner easily kept his seat against Tea Party type challengers. Big government lovers, like the Cincinnati Enquirer enjoyed thoroughly the retention of the safe old and beatable GOP strong holds and big tax initiatives against challengers. Here is how they described Boehner’s win:
Tea party challenger J.D. Winteregg, a 32-year-old high school French teacher from Troy, could do nothing to push Boehner from a spot on the November ballot.
Throughout the night, Boehner blasted Winteregg, taking 66 percent or more of the vote.
With 41 percent of precincts reporting, Boehner had 71 percent of the vote with Winteregg trailing at 23 percent. Liberty Township businessman Eric Gurr had 6 percent.
The GOP and its supporters are happy that they were able to survive a challenge to their authority. They are short-sited enough to believe this primary year will get them off the hook forever with the Tea Party—which they supported in 2010 to take control of the House of Representatives, but abandoned by 2012 leading largely to the reelection of Barack Obama. In the end Obama and Boehner are a lot closer together in political ideology than an average farmer or member of the Tea Party. In GOP circles the common belief is that everything will now return to normal. Radical Tea Party types—those who believe in the United States Constitution will drift away into oblivion once again to hide in discontent behind the shadows. The statists once the polls closed Tuesday night celebrated. Good times were back—there would be a return of the dinner parties, the back slapping, and the golf games—and gone would be all this crazy talk of Constitutional value. Progressive advancement of the old socialist doctrine would continue unencumbered—at least that’s what they believed.
I listened with patience to my many friends that night disappointed with the results and their showings in the election. The school levy issue is a predictable strategy—in Fairfield if they didn’t get their money this time, they’d try again in November—and again and again until they were successful. This is the way of the game, if the public does not give the money the first time, take away some services, make it hard on the public, then ask again once the extortion measures have taken place. In a lot of ways, the GOP has done much the same thing. They simply waited out the storm, dumped large amounts of money at public perception, and put selections to the public during a primary season where most people are far more concerned about the upcoming NFL draft, and the new summer movie releases.
The Enquirer was very happy that most of the potential voters out there stayed away from the polls and those who did vote, supported their social concerns. They will continue to be happy so long as this cycle continues. But it can’t. The GOP is operating in an unsustainable fashion, the communist oriented Democrats are even further out of touch, the school levy increases cannot continue forever, and eventually the police levies will run out because their wages like their teacher counterparts are too high for the services they provide. The reason the GOP and Enquirer enjoyed their primary night was not because their social objectives are superior, but because most people just don’t care anymore. They don’t want to vote because they don’t see the point.
When it is said that “Boehner blasted Winteregg, taking 66 percent or more of the vote” the enthusiasm wasn’t even hidden, yet 66 percent of nearly nothing is the reality. Boehner had 66% of a voting group that was small and already behind him to begin with, so the results are not a surprise. The tragedy is in the apathy of the voters who see so little hope in going to the polls to vote, that they didn’t even bother. And in their absence, public school looters, career politicians, and general scum bags were allowed to resume their activities of treachery.
Oblivious to them all while they knocked glasses of wine together and whispered in each other’s ears about their plans for the next golf game is the end game of this whole election mess. What happens to them when the next generation simply doesn’t care enough to vote—because most of the voters in this primary are from the old days—those over 50 years of age and still believe in civic responsibility? What happens to the GOP when those people are gone?
Their extinction is a forgone conclusion. They cannot continue. The system will not withstand the pressures and apathy of the future. The Enquirer is happy that Boehner had 66% of the vote from a group of participants who are in the extreme minority. The majority cares more about who the Bengals will draft in the first round of the 2014 NFL draft than they do if Boehner is Speaker of the House. And because of the choices everyone involved in the 2014 victories made, from the Enquirer to Boehner’s handlers—the end of the road will hit them hard sooner than later. When that happens, the Tea Party will still be there when the mountainous network of lap dogs have left the GOP vulnerable and chewing their own tails. When that happens it will be remembered the choice of words used in those elections. And “blasted” will find a resurrection to fit the cause of the new day against the old GOP.
I found it fascinating and ironic that a family of foxes made a home in the drain pipe at the end of my driveway. For as long as I have been alive I have loved the character of Zorro which means “fox” in Spanish. They are nocturnal creatures who are extremely difficult to catch. As a young man in Liberty Township I knew plenty of people who trapped foxes hoping to catch them for their pelts. I always hoped that the foxes would evade capture—like Zorro—my favorite defender of justice. Only a few times did I see them captured, but otherwise they were like mysteries of the night. I would see them occasionally like ghosts sneaking across the yard—cat like, but large like dogs with their big bushy tails flowing out like the cape of Zorro. As soon as your eyes focused on them, they were gone again leaving their presence to be in question—as if doubt could be placed on their existence. So it came with some shock that a fox came to my home to give birth to her pups. It is highly unusual to see a fox in the daylight but because the babies had no idea what night and day was yet, they were up at all hours blowing the cover of the normally nocturnal fox. Here is a video of their activity at the end of my driveway.
Zorro is a character created in 1919 by New York–based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media. Zorro is the secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega, a Californionobleman and master living in Los Angeles during the era of Spanish rule.
The character has undergone changes through the years, but the typical image of him is a dashing black-clad masked outlaw who defends the people of the land against tyrannical officials and other villains. Not only is he too cunning and foxlike for the bumbling authorities to catch, but also delights in publicly humiliating them. That last part is a trait that I have personally carried with me most of my life. It is what a fox does and if I had to identify with an animal, it would be that of a fox.
That left a question in my mind as to why if that fox were so smart, why would she decide to have babies at the end of my driveway right next to a road that has frequent travelers just feet from their play area? A fox should be smarter than that. Her nest was quite well out in the open causing many people to drive by and slow down in disbelief wondering if they were really seeing what they thought they saw. I watched the fox and her cubs playing and nursing just feet from the crushing tires of the large cars going by and found it interesting that the little animals never jumped out under them even by accident. The mother was secure in her knowledge that her children would escape danger. She seemed unconcerned.
Even when I went out to film the fox and her litter she seemed unconcerned by me. I deliberately stayed away so that the little ones would not become complacent to my presence, because they needed to stay vigilant. Not all humans they encounter will respect them they way I do. Many will want to make a coat out of them. So it is important that the little fox cubs not let down their guard. But the mother had made her decision after very careful assessment and her pick of birthing location was no accident. The nature of a fox is always a planned escapade that has elusiveness in their prerogative.
In the morning several times the mother fox would sit next to my driveway as the sun came up and I would drive my loud motorcycle right by her and she would not move. She had determined by some unknown method that I was not a threat to her or her children—but how did she know? As I thought of her strategy she was actually quite clever in her endeavor to give birth in that particular location. The success rate of having babies in the drain pipe is that coyotes, cats, and other small carnivores won’t have easy pickings of her cubs while she’s away hunting food. Her dangers are minimized if only she could have assurance that the humans who can see her in plain site will respect her space. The cars that go by are much less of a concern to her dashing children than the natural predators of the nearby woods.
The more I watched her over the last few weeks the more respect I had for her. A few times I had to chase off gawkers who were being too intrusive of her space, and the Butler County Animal control people had to be talked off the wire a few times—thinking that they needed to take some kind of action. My wife told them that the little ones would be big enough to go to the woods on their own soon, so their services were not needed. A few other nosy people behaved similarly thinking that it was their job to remove the little creatures from human eyes—because foxes are known carnivores and do kill cats and small dogs. To them a small army of foxes growing up under my driveway was a threat to their lives in some way. At our home we have an outside cat that lingers in our garage but is out and about in the day and the cat and the fox do not pay each other much attention. In our backyard is a ground-hog that is a full-time resident and harasses our two dogs with his pudgy body wobbling across the yard when he sees them. The fox has shown no desire to bother any of these animals. They are all living happily on my property without fanfare.
They will soon be gone and it is unlikely that I will ever see anything like them again. The more I watched them, the more cunning I came to understand the mother fox to be. Like Zorro, she knew how to hide from her enemies in broad daylight in much the way Don Diego hid in society disguised from his foxlike justice seeking alter ego. The mother fox had made the ultimate strategic move to preserve the lives of her children from the natural predators of the wild—she found safety under my driveway knowing well enough that my family would not be a threat to hers. And she hedged her bet that she would gain enough human support to fight off the parasites of humankind as she insulated herself away from the threats of the woods—until her children were big enough to care for themselves. The cars were surely dangerous, but not as much so as snakes, and other carnivores looking to feed themselves on the young babies—so the fox placed herself between the dangers of two worlds to find that perfect balance of safety for her children.
It was a bold move by the mother, but I am happy to have assisted her—a fellow fox of outsmarting the very nature of life itself and mocking it with her bold presence. Her daylight presence was almost like giving the middle-finger to the nearby woods and all the animals there wishing to make an easy meal of her babies. She knew what she was doing and I’m glad she did. It was a sight and trust that I will not soon forget. From one fox to another…………………………..adios.
When anybody uses the term, “we must educate our children to compete in the global marketplace,” or any variation of that term the instigator is totally ignorant as to what makes education valuable. They falsely believe that education consists in teaching children left-winged ideology and work habits of a 100% commitment to institutionalism and that since the rest of the world is moving in that direction, that American education must consist of these erroneous premises. After all, political “leaders” see how things are done in China, and Japan, and they believe they must copy those methods—which is probably the dumbest thing that could be introduced to an American workforce and the people who make it up. People who believe that “education” as defined by Common Core standards is the way to direct young minds might as well be crack addicts instructing others on responsible living. The point of education eludes them making them a menace to the discussion of learning.
The most important attribute public education could and should implement into an instructional system of any kind, is the ability to think. The second thing it could do would be to teach students to be competent human beings. Anything outside of those parameters is useless to a human mind, and merely ornamental. Education is not a race against the socialists of Europe, the communists of China, or the kamikaze driven Easterner. Americans are imaginative, intuitive, and utilize large amounts of horse sense in their utilization of productivity and their education system needs to reflect this trend.
Americans fix tractors often with shovel handles, solve complicated engineering feats with bubble gum, and produce more patents than anyplace else in the world—because they are a free people who are at liberty to think. However modern education which leans way to far to the political left, is about chasing the rest of the foolish world teaching our youth to be just as stupid as everyone else, and to turn off their minds to the process of thought—and to embrace blind submission to institutional authority. This is the most damaging attribute that can be taught to an American.
If those who support government education want real success, not just statistical success relative to the rest of the world’s false methods they would teach young minds to “think” not just remember facts given to them by the state. Even conservatives are guilty of this tendency of believing that by committing resources to “education” that they have done their job. They don’t consider the quality of education, only that someone is doing something educationally related. They don’t think of what the implications of education may be if the wrong things are learned, or the wrong interpretation of history is broadcast to young minds awaiting programming of their brain by trusted adults.
Michelle Rhee the popular education reformer at the heart of the movie Waiting for Superman is wrong when she says that education is the key to the success of American children. That cliché is overused and ridiculous. It is a mythology designed to preserve the education culture and their utopian vision for the world. Most of those people are well-intentioned human beings who simply love children and teaching them—but they do not consider in those assessments the quality of their love, or their intelligence as factors that can hold back children from living otherwise fruitful lives. They assume that they are qualified to teach just because the state has given them a license to do so—a license that meant the teacher had to comply with the state’s version of reality.
The way to alleviate these faux pas in education is to teach children to think. Why is Common Core so vile and evil? The reason is that the only way it can work is to limit the intelligence of the most brilliant and force them to only be as good as the weakest links. Our modern education system does not like making such value judgments—which is why they ultimately are failures. The belief with Common Core is that if children spin their wheels copying off students from countries reeking with statism, that success will abound and that such success can be had by not asserting value to the quality of the students or their educations. It cannot. If students aren’t taught first how to think, or how to be competent human beings, the education system will fail 100% of the time.
If the value is to produce students who will mindlessly serve the state, then modern education throughout the world is doing its job. But if the goal is to teach human beings to invent new things, start businesses, vote correctly, or mentor a child—they are way off the intended target and have no hope of getting there under the current circumstances. Education is more than just lip service—it is a philosophy. It can’t be memorized; it has to be a part of an individual mind. There is no way to cheat it. If garbage is put into a mind, then garbage will come out.
My daughter sent me a text the other day that featured a cartoon of a young person reading a book. The caption read, “Uploading data to the human brain.” What we feed our brains is what we ultimately become. If we read good books, think good thoughts, and use our imaginations to explore possibilities, we will have reasonable success in life. But before that can happen, “good” has to be identified, and stood behind. If on the other hand we put into our minds garbage like pornography, sports stats, trivial nonsense like global warming issues, political diatribes and that kind of thing, our minds over time will become encumbered with sluggish thought processes. Education is not good unless the value of good accompanies it. A well-rounded education is not exploring sexuality, worshiping the earth, or supporting teacher unions. It is about learning to think and living as a competent individual.
It is utterly shocking how many functioning adults in 2014 are incompetent fools. The only way I can avoid this incompetency is to not leave my driveway in the morning, because there are some really stupid people functioning in the world—which is evidence that our education system is a complete failure. Yet politicians want us to do more of this foolishness so they can get their fingers on federal money dangled like bait in a trap to supersede our state sovereignty. That is just idiotic.
It is easy to make clichéd comments about education without considering the implications and it happens all the time. But the answer is not in just hiring more teachers, giving more money to teachers, or building more schools. That is not enough. The real intent of education is in teaching people to “think.” Without thought there is no education, there is no mind, and there certainly isn’t any kind of future. Without thought, there is nothing—but empty promises and misery. And I want no part in that.
One of the best interviews at this year’s Cincinnati Tea Party was author Harald Zieger who wrote the book, Freedom’s Nightmare, which is about how he escaped communist oppression to come to America. In the book he discusses some of the threats to our current liberties which remind him of his life behind the Iron Curtain. Matt Clark from WAAM radio sat down with Harald at the event and had a fantastic interview with him. Harald actually brought up during the interview something that I have been saying for a long time—American education has been taken over by the state and is intent on programming young people into the goals of statism—and less directly, communism. This is the natural byproduct of a government-run education system which often begins with good intentions—like most things—but quickly becomes a path to Hell. That Hell, is the current state of education in our country and is probably the most alarming aspect of the various facets of modern culture. For Harald Zieger, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain—specifically Soviet controlled East Germany—he has seen all this before which was revealed during this riveting interview with Matt.
Even I am surprised how many people to this day know nothing of the Berlin Wall in Germany or its history which has been lost to academic ideology. The same policies which put up the Berlin Wall so many years ago, just seven years before my birth are happening in America today—only at a much slower rate. The slow rate is quite on purpose so not to shock the world into rejecting the communist plight—as happened in the standoff between West and East Berlin at the height of the Cold War.
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin.[1] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[2] which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds” and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the “will of the people” in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart” (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified.[3] The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the “Wall of Shame“—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall’s restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize the “Iron Curtain” that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
Before the Wall’s erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin, from where they could then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the wall prevented almost all such emigration.[4] During this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the wall, with an estimated death toll of over 100[5] in and around Berlin, although that claim is disputed.[6]
In 1989, a series of radical political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc’s authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The physical Wall itself was primarily destroyed in 1990. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
The reason for the wall was to actually contain the people who were fleeing from East Germany into the West—essentially from communism to capitalism. The race of which the Soviets were attempting to outpace was an erosion of world-wide support of communism by infiltrating the education institutions of all capitalist oriented countries. This is exclusively why there are so many liberals to this day in colleges and drive teacher unions in public schools. But the Soviets were too late. They implemented their plan, and did infiltrate the world’s education institutions but they ran out of other people’s money rather fast and bankrupted themselves. In East Berlin the situation was so dire that people actually risked being shot dead to even have the opportunity to live under capitalism as opposed to communism. One of those people was Harald Zieger.
A liberal media cannot criticize Zieger’s experiences as blind rhetoric because unlike them, Harald actually lived through these hard times, so he is a unique authority on the subject in historical context. And Zieger says in his interview that the education system in America today is dangerously close to what the Soviets where using against their people in the times of the Berlin Wall. The fate of such education methods and the people under their instruction will be no different—yet progressives believe that if the approach to communism is different—slower, and more globally inclusive, that finally their massive plan of social collectivism will work. They are functioning from the same level of ignorance that the idiots who put up the Berlin Wall were functioning under. Their belief is that if capitalism is destroyed or people are denied access to “capitalist greed” then communism for the good of the people will be able to come into bloom. Yet if such a thing worked so well, it would be able to compete with capitalism and clearly in Berlin it wasn’t even close. Just a few years after World War II West Germany was thriving, while the Soviet controlled East Berlin was a hollowed out city that lacked any kind of economic vibrancy. The advocates of communism as they do today, believe that if people were forced into communism away from capitalism that all people would benefit. It’s the same foolish notion that believed that a giant wall would actually contain people from wanting to leave one political ideology for another. One represented oppression and overly micromanaged government control of everything—the other was freedom, and economic stimulation driven by human desire. The two mentalities couldn’t be further apart from each other and there isn’t any middle ground between the two—as many progressive believe today—when they speak of a “managed economy.”
Today there isn’t a Berlin Wall, but there is a deep divide in America—there are people who believe in communism and people who believe in capitalism. They call both different names today than they did in the times of the Berlin Wall, but the differences are essentially the same. Communists otherwise known as progressives still believe that if they gain control of the media, the education system and the money supply that they can suppress the human desire for freedom. But they can’t. People just like Harald Zieger fled from East Germany into West Germany in search of freedom and opportunity. People still flee the government at every opportunity—and they always will no matter how many laws are created, or how much the government thinks it can tamper with an economy. The bottom line between capitalism and communism is one of initiative. Communism strives to control initiative, where capitalism rewards it. And there is nothing academia can do to alleviate that essential human trait—even though they have tried. The horror stories discussed by Harald Zieger actually happened, and are happening right now—only differently. Today the wall isn’t so easy to see, but the mentality is still present—and the intentions of the communists are just as real, and dangerous. They can be seen most effectively at your local public school. It is there where the modern Berlin Wall is built brick by brick—child by child—labor union by labor union consuming tax payer money in a war against private property that is fueled by a hatred of capitalism. It is happening not in some far away land from a different time—but in our own back yards, to our children, and our very lives.
“Forget about me [specifically]. Look at the way the attorney general of the United States was treated yesterday by a House committee,” Eric Holder told the crowd. “What attorney general has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment? What president has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?”
And with that a criminal attempted to divert attention away from him and the president he is protecting with roars from a crowd—but he can no longer outrun the facts. They have caught up to him and those under him—and there is nowhere else to turn.
So what’s going on in Washington for those who don’t normally pay attention to politics…………..well, criminals who have been up to no good have been caught. Eric Holder, the current right hand man of President Obama, Louis Lerner the former head of the IRS, and one of the leading Democrats investigating the IRS scandal of targeting conservatives specifically have been found complicit in the crime of cover-up and nobody seems to know what to do with the unprecedented level of corruption exhibited.
True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht responded Wednesday to reports that Rep. Elijah Cummings’ office may have prompted the IRS to target her group for additional scrutiny.
“Today’s committee action reveals what we knew all along. Partisan politics and the weaponization of government against opponents of this administration is real and continues,” Engelbrecht said in a statement. “Elijah Cummings has blocked the IRS abuse investigation all along. We now see clearly that two branches of government have colluded to target and silence private citizens.”
“America has come to a tipping point,” she added. “No more lies. No more cover-ups. No more collusion. Enough is enough. Finally, we have a chance for the rule of law to be re-established, thanks to the bold efforts of Chairman Issa and Rep. Jordan.”
She concluded: “We filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Cummings in February. Today we’re amending that filing to include this latest revelation. As I have said in my testimony before Congress; I will not retreat, I will not surrender, I will not be intimidated. I will not ask Rep. Cummings, Lois Lerner, Barack Obama, or anyone else, for permission to exercise my constitutional rights.”
The committee voted Wednesday to seek an investigation of whether Lerner violated federal law by using her power to ensure Right-leaning groups were targeted for extra scrutiny by the agency, giving misleading information during a probe of the matter by the Treasury Department‘s inspector general and using her personal email to conduct official business, which could have resulted in the disclosure of confidential taxpayer information.
“The Ways and Means Committee, led by Chairman [Dave] Camp [R-Mich.], has conducted a serious and thorough investigation of the IRS, uncovering abuses and criminal acts that should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said of the referral. “As I’ve said, if Lois Lerner continues to refuse to testify, then the House will hold her in contempt. And we will continue to shine the light on the administration’s abusive actions and use every tool at our disposal to expose the truth and ensure the American people get the answers they deserve.”
Among those tools is the House’s “inherent contempt” authority under the Constitution, which was initially exercised in 1795 during the First Congress and on multiple occasions thereafter. Lerner could be held until January 2015 when a new Congress is seated, which could issue another subpoena and throw her in the clink again if she still balks at testifying.
These are not mere accusations. The government employees mentioned above are criminals. They have knowingly used the power of government to advance their social agenda and they should be punished to the furthest extent of the law. These same people have lied about their conduct when questioned and should have all their activity conducted under public service analyzed and amended accordingly. They are no different from a thug who has robbed a couple outside of a grocery store, or a gunman who holds up a bank. They have committed a crime while representing the Oath of Office, and are despicable examples of social policy conduct.
But many of us, especially at this site have been saying this all along. We are the ones who refused to drink the Kool-aid and comply blindly with the authority of a corrupt Attorney General and an activist president intent to change society—even if it broke the law. The President and his Attorney General used pawns like Louis Lerner and Elijah Cummings to run cover for their attack on conservative groups who stood in the way of their progressive plans. They abused their authority, and now its time to pay for it. The IRS scandal, which will eventually point straight into The White House, is bigger than Watergate ever was. Obama and Holder made the entire issue all about “the cover-up,” because they lied and covered up the truth while looking straight into the eye of the American people.
They should at least lose their jobs and be stripped publicly of their accolades. But if there were any justice……………….any justice at all, they would all go to jail for their violation of the public trust.
There seems to be much surprise that Russia is acting so aggressively toward the outside world. The illusion of global unity has been officially shattered and it frightens people who otherwise were unaware of any potential threats. Russia is not acting aggressively just out of lust for power, it is out of necessity as their former commitment to communism, and current statism has destroyed their economy. The only way out for such parasitic and inept economies like Russia’s is to steal the wealth of other nations so to save themselves and is the primary reason for the Russian aggression of retaking the nations which were formally part of the Soviet Union. Having the largest landmass of any other country—including all of Europe put together, the GDP of Russia is only a pathetic $2 trillion dollars. The United States GDP is by comparison $17.4 trillion as of January of 2014. Below are the GDP data points of particular interest comparing the two nations. Pay particular attention to the productivity per capita. Russian productivity is dismal in this category. In the United States this even accounts for the 100 million plus who are part of the welfare culture and are negative GDP contributors. The per capita value among the truly productive is just staggering by comparison.
This data is the real issue between America, the rest of the world, and Russia. The evidence that capitalism is vastly superior to statism, communism, and socialism is due to the ability of the comparatively small United States to so drastically out produce such a large country as Russia. Really, Russia has everything physically going for it, they have vast natural resources, tremendous fishing in the North Atlantic and Arctic regions, and vast sums of unused land for production, manufacturing, and innovation. They are unable to use those tools properly because of their commitment to collative salvation. Russia has had two decades to dig out from under the communist failures of the past and they have failed to do so—because they are still quietly committed to Soviet era communism—now in the form of conservative statism. The Japanese did recover after World War II. They adopted forms of capitalism to become one of the largest economies in the world contained to a small island. This is the number one reason that the current communist Chinese are eying domination of Japan and Taiwan, not out of revenge for past atrocities during war, but for Japanese economic power. Russia is an empty vessel looking to be filled. The trouble is, as quickly as they can steal the wealth of others, they consume it because the nature of their entire country, raised under repressive communism, does not understand how to be productive.
There is no peace process through The United Nations which can prevent Russian aggression into Europe. They need money and Russia does not have it, or possesses the ability to make it. If Russia were a capitalist country, it is likely they could out produce The United States by three to four times—but they aren’t capitalist. They are essentially still a communist country that has not fully let go of their past restrictions. They are still committed to that ridiculous Karl Marx pamphlet called The Communist Manifesto. That book has destroyed so many millions upon millions of lives and has forced trillions of people into poverty. It is the dumbest and most idiotic book ever to hit the human race because of its detrimental impact to low quality life. Communism is the cause of the measly $2 trillion dollar Russian economy. The Russian people were bred under communism and are now lifeless shells of their true potential.
Like drowning victims in the cold icy waters around a sinking ship, the Russian people are trying to grab on to anything and everything to keep them floating just a minute longer. This is why they want to attack Ukraine and any other nation with access to ports, and productivity. Unable to generate that productivity on their own, they have to steal it from those who can.
It is that simple. It’s no mystery, but to the minds who don’t understand how these types of things impact the big picture of the global economy and why free people out produce conquered people suppressed under the foot of statism, the only option for a country like Russia is to steal the productivity of others.
The cause of much world misery is not having enough money, yet for most, they have complete control over this issue. Being productive means making money, a productive person is seldom poor unless they are experiencing a debilitating illness. Lazy people who are seeking the productivity of others will look for political and economic systems centering around collectivism to sustain their lives. Russia has so many troops because they have a lot of people without real jobs. So they are in the Russian military. The greatness of the American military is not how large it is, but how it has been built and maintained as a surplus of American capitalism instead of a deficit driving detriment. At over $17 trillion dollars in GDP America can afford a military as a luxury. In Russia, at only $2 Trillion, it is a way of life—because there isn’t anything else to do. Russia in no capacity is equal to America. The people may breath the same, they may eat the same, they may enjoy the same types of recreational activities, but they do not think the same. One has a collectivist mentality based on their communist roots, and the other is a capitalist nation built on productivity. Russia’s aggression is purely out of self-preservation for their economy and nothing else, but the unspoken reason is that their economy is so terrible because they have a society of people who were molded with socialism and communism living under current statism—and that does not infuse wealth into a country’s GDP. It’s not a mystery, or a failure in talking between nations, it is from what people believe or don’t believe which makes all the difference in the world. And when it comes to Russia, it is why they are failing to provide their people with a robust economy. They simply think the wrong things for all the philosophic reasons that led them down a bitter, and broken path—the teachings of Karl Marx.
Eric Allan Kramer, is playing the pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld in “Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt?.” The footage below shows what to expect from Kramer in his rendition of the unique pirate from the very popular American literary classic Atlas Shrugged. I volunteered to play Ragnar to producer Harmon Kaslow because I was worried that it would be hard to find the right actor who could do such a character justice—because getting that part right means a lot to the overall story of the third Atlas Shrugged film. But after seeing this interview from Eric Allan Kramer, I am no longer concerned. Ragnar Danneskjöld is a key role to understanding Atlas Shrugged, he is a pirate built on philosophic principle. He does not loot for the right to steal from others to gain for himself the way a typical progressive sees the world, instead he loots to take back what is stolen and gives it back to those who truly produce.
Ragnar Danneskjöld was born in Norway, the last son of one of its first families. His father was the Catholic Archbishop of Norway. When he was sixteen, his father sent him to study at the Patrick Henry University, in Cleveland, Ohio[1] (not to be confused with the real-life Patrick Henry College in Chesapeake, Virginia).
Ragnar Danneskjöld studied physics and philosophy—a highly unusual double major. While at PHU, he made two lasting friendships that would change his life forever, though he did not know it at the time. One of these friends was Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d’Anconia, who also was an aristocrat of sorts, though Latin American rather than European. The other was John Galt, who was anything but aristocratic, and came to PHU with barely a penny to his name. These disparities in background and circumstances did not matter to any of these three. All three shared a love of the natural world, how it actually worked, and how one should function within it.
When they graduated, each made a different plan. Francisco d’Anconia planned to take over his father’s great copper company, D’Anconia Copper SA of Argentina. John Galt at first earned his master’s degree in physics and began work on his Doctor of Philosophy degree, until events impelled him to leave university life and go to work as a commercial engineer and inventor. Ragnar earned his master’s degree in philosophy and stayed on to earn his doctorate.
Of the two Chairmen who shaped his life, Hugh Akston, Chairman of Philosophy, stayed true to the ideals that attracted Ragnar and the others to him. Robert Stadler, Chairman of Physics, did not. Stadler’s decision to endorse the establishment of a State Science Institute, impelled John to leave. If Dr. Akston discussed John’s rather acrimonious break with Stadler with Ragnar, neither man said anything about it to any other character.
Though each of the three began to implement his respective plan, all three would receive a rude interruption.
Six years after the three received their bachelor’s degrees and when Ragnar was on the cusp of becoming a PhD himself, Ragnar received a summons from John Galt to meet him, not at his home in Starnesville, Wisconsin, but in a garret apartment in a run-down brownstone in New York City. Francisco d’Anconia received a similar summons. John Galt then told his two friends what had happened to him.
Galt had gone to work for the Twentieth Century Motor Company in Starnesville, named after Gerald “Jed” Starnes, the company’s founder. There he had built the prototype of the first-ever practical electrostatic motor. But Gerald Starnes had died, and his three children inaugurated a plan to have everyone at the factory work according to his ability, but be paid according to his need. Ragnar probably recognized that principle at once, from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.
John Galt had refused to work under such a plan. He not only quit the factory, but also announced to the three heirs that he would “stop the motor of the world.” He began, of course, by wrecking his prototype and carrying away with him those portions of his notes that would enable any future investigator to duplicate his work. And now he was asking his two friends to join him in what he called the strike of the men of the mind, and recruit others to do the same. The rules were simple: anyone having savings to retire on, would do so; the rest would take the lowest jobs that they could find, so that they would not give society the benefit of their talents.
The next morning, Francisco accepted John’s strike call. Ragnar accepted that afternoon. Francisco set out to implement his own strike plan: to assume the guise of a playboy, while systematically destroying D’Anconia Copper. Ragnar and John traveled to Cleveland, where Ragnar told Dr. Akston that he was quitting his graduate studies, and why. Before the evening was over, Dr. Akston not only accepted Ragnar’s decision but vowed then and there to hand in his own resignation, and for the same reason.
Ragnar found the overall strike plan elegant and logical—but incomplete. In truth, Ragnar was infuriated with what John Galt had told him. Or perhaps the business plan of the Starnes children struck Ragnar as a prize example of a much larger social and political problem. This problem had long filled him with righteous indignation, and now this indignation boiled over. As Ragnar saw it, society was guilty of armed robbery—and if that society would not police itself, then the men of the mind must not only withdraw from it, but make war against it to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Ragnar decided then and there to fight that war and carry it directly to what all three called “the looters.”
Ragnar Danneskjöld’s solution came from the heritage and tradition of his Viking forebears. Ragnar had a fast ship that nevertheless carried guns capable of bombarding either another ship or a shore target at long range. Ragnar also had at his disposal at least one aircraft: a cargo carrier with which Ragnar would later transport large quantities of the gold he collected in his activities.
Ragnar set out at once to assemble a crew of demobilized Navy officers, petty officers, and seamen. These men told him that the US Navy planned to retire one of its most famous aircraft carriers, and the one having the longest flight deck in history: USS Enterprise CVN-65. Ragnar had other plans: he hijacked the ship at sea, and this was the occasion in which he suffered his one and only combat wound. So he became a privateer, and in fact became known as the scourge of the high seas (chiefly the Atlantic Ocean and occasionally the Caribbean Sea). (In fact, the name Enterprise, as the name of a ship, might have appealed to him on this specific account: a privateer under license to the Second Continental Congress during the American Revolution also bore that name.)
He was careful never to kill a member of another ship’s crew if he could avoid it; if he ever had to sink another vessel, he would put the crew adrift in lifeboats. One such sailor described Danneskjöld’s face as terrible to behold, because it showed no feeling whatsoever. It did not even show hatred; it was cold and hard. It was the face of one who, having a job to do, did it and did not waste time emoting about it.
He never directly attacked any naval vessel, unless said vessel attacked him first. He never attacked any private vessel, nor seized private property. With one exception: at Francisco d’Anconia’s specific request, he attacked D’Anconia Copper ships and sank them with their loads. This was in keeping with Francisco’s own strike plan to destroy D’Anconia Copper systematically, so that no one would benefit from his talents or those of his father and grandfather and ancestors.
Ragnar’s actual targets were what he called the “loot carriers.” These were “humanitarian” cargoes paid for with taxpayers’ money and sent by order of the Bureau of Global Relief. This was the best method available to Ragnar to recover the substance that was taken from men of the mind by force. Eventually, not a single such cargo could ever sail from an American port to any of several “People’s States” throughout the world and hope to reach its destination. Ragnar Danneskjold was always waiting, and always found his targets. From the description given of some of his other activities, one may infer that he had an espionage network unrivaled for effectiveness and avoidance of compromise.
Ragnar would take these cargoes to various smugglers throughout Europe (whether he ever penetrated the Straits of Gibraltar with one of his prizes, the novel never says) and sell them. He also found a market for some of his plunder in the United States—a black market, which eventually became the only market available. He always demanded payment in gold. The most likely black market is in fact Midas Mulligan himself, and Ragnar would then be the “safe channel” by which Midas could purchase any goods the men of Galt’s Gulch could not produce on their own.) He would never accept any fiat currency, be it Federal Reserve notes or the scrip of any People’s State.
He began his career in privateering very early into the strike. He was wounded only once (see above), and never thought of that wound again, unless John Galt reminded him of it. Ragnar thought of his wound as a necessary lesson that an amateur must learn before he can call himself a true professional. He quite often told John, Francisco, and (later on) the others who joined the great strike to quit worrying about him. He ruefully observed that they never listened. By the last year of the strike, Ragnar easily captured every prize he set his sights upon, and had lowered his casualty rate to zero.
There is much more to Ragnar, but that provides a brief history. Out of all the Atlas characters it is Ragnar which I most closely identify with, and why I volunteered to play the part in the movie. After the poor reception of the first two films I was worried that career actors might avoid being added to the cast for fear of blacklisting, but Kaslow and Aglialoro actually had no problem. When Eric Allan Kramer was added to the list, my concerns quickly alleviated. There is a reality to Ragnar Danneskjöld which is explored no place else. His ability to travel the world with the military might of every nation peeking at his doorstep might seem ominous to most, but to my experience is very realistic and it looks like Kramer pegged the role.
Over this last weekend a young man asked me why I wasn’t worried about assassination attempts, and political harassment for the things I get involved with. As I tried to explain why I did not worry about such things to him I could only think of Ragnar Danneskjöld. Readers here know that I have been involved in friendships with hit men, I have known members of crime syndications well, I have been a property repossesor, a body guard, a bouncer, and have been in many conflicts. I have known prominent judges representing the highest order of the law who looked like nice family guys who were deeply in bed with crime families doing really bad things so I have some very good experience and the bottom line is this; the NSA, the big banking families, the FBI, CIA, Muslim radicals, communists, socialist, labor unions, crazed lunatics and fanatical collectivists of the world taken together cannot for the life of them find their way out of a paper bag without proper leadership to help them. They are, taken at their collective intelligence, incompetent. As individuals, there are very competent people in those organizations—but as long as they function as a collective unit they are only as strong as the weakest links and are paralyzed with inaction. They can literally do nothing. The experience of Ragnar Danneskjöld in the novel Atlas Shrugged is reality. He was too competent to be captured by collective fools—which is a contrary message shown on cop dramas on television. In real life bullets don’t often fly as straight as people think, nor do they do as much damage upon impact. This is similar to when you punch someone in the face—they do not immediately go down like they do in the movies. If a person is bold, competent, and more intelligent than his rivals—he will win no matter what the odds and no matter what the number and this is something only a handful of people in the entire world understand.
I do not worry about my home being surrounded by “authorities” and I do not worry about them tracking my statements or watching my every move. They should not have the right or ability to do so—but I do not worry about it either because they are incompetent to act on what they witness. Ragnar Danneskjöld’s world view and experience is more accurate to reality than anything ever put on CSI, Magnum PI, or Miami Vice. Collective authority is incompetent against a quality individual—Ragnar would easily be able to outmaneuver all the armies of the world for as long as he wished simply because he as an individual was better than their cumbersome intellectual capacity weighed down by the brain dead weak links of their institutional thinking. Atlas Shrugged as an American novel was one of the first works of art in the world to even explore the concept of quality versus quantity.
The popular assumption which Atlas Shrugged challenges is that masses trump minorities—in this case, not reflective of skin color or sex, but of ability. Few people actually posses quality ability and this cannot be solved by the looting by the many of the few for the sustenance of all. Ragnar was fighting against this trend and even with all the efforts of every government and military against him, nobody could beat him. This is a hidden reality that is probably the best kept secret of the modern age. The NSA can collect every bit of data about every human being, insect, and cell structure ever known to exist on planet earth, yet they cannot overcome this glaring fact. As I said to the young man, so what if they watch me, so what if they want to dispose of me, so what if they listen to and read every word that comes from my mind—what would they do with that information? They are incompetent and are paralyzed to act—so what would there be to worry about? Just because “they” desire something does not mean that they can magically whip up competency to execute the task. A lot of people want to cook good food, fix a car, and install air conditioning units on homes, but only those with the skills to do so can hope to achieve such a thing. And often, not just anybody can do these tasks when trained—there are some cooks better than other cooks, some mechanics better than other mechanics and so on—but without the basic skills at a particular quality level, nothing happens.
Governments hope that by bringing in all kids of different minds that the collective will of the institution will benefit equally, but what they discover is that once those of quality are looted by those without quality that their few good people among their ranks stop contributing leaving the weak and clueless to perform the tasks. It doesn’t matter if the organization is large or small, once individual contributors realize that their efforts will not be rewarded, they stop working. This is why characters like Ragnar Danneskjöld were able to travel the world unchecked and unstopped by even the most technically proficient governments, because the minds behind those governments are incompetent to action because of group consensus.
Ragnar Danneskjöld is really the first pirate of his kind, and audiences won’t know quite what to think of Eric Allan Kramer’s performance if they have not yet studied the novel Atlas Shrugged. While critics of the premise of Ragnar will scoff at the reality of such a pirate, what their protests really indicate is a deep insecurity at the truth behind the character. Ragnar Danneskjöld is a character that properly identifies a flaw in human nature which the pirate Blackbeard exploited several centuries ago. Blackbeard would have continued to have success as a pirate if he had not grown so power hungry, and arrogant. The English navy couldn’t stop him, and they were the most powerful in the entire world at the time. Jesse James is another example of such a personality. The might of the United States military could not stop the guy—it took an individual assassin of some level of competency functioning outside of the bureaucracy of the law to perform the task. For a character like Ragnar, he does not have the personality flaws of such outlaws—he’s a man of goodness which makes him much more difficult to deal with. And that is why Ragnar Danneskjöld is the Atlas Shrugged character that I most identify with and the moment things go sour where American society no longer functions—could very well be my own potential future. It wouldn’t take much for me to go pirate. All that stops me from doing it now is the hope that using the First Amendment can stop the spread of collectivism before The Second Amendment is needed. But the moment that there is no First Amendment, it will be a pirates life for me, and the world will note be able to stop it—for all the reasons that Eric Allan Kramer’s performance of Ragnar Danneskjöld will display.
Too often there is very little to talk about but what we don’t like—and when you’re picky, or expect competency when dealing with people, all too often what we get is disappointment. Every day for over 6 years now I have put on a leather flight jacket from US Wings. I ride motorcycles all year, and there are maybe a handful of days over that span of time that I don’t have to go somewhere. And when I do travel it is usually by motorcycle. So my leather jacket has to be tough, withstand all the elements and be extremely functional. Even on the hottest days of summer a leather jacket is needed—the mornings are often cool, too cool for naked skin and large bugs pelt you in the torso area while riding. The leather is an offering of armor and is essential riding equipment. Even during a motorcycle ride from Key West to the Everglades 50 miles west of Miami where the real temperature was 107 degrees the early dawn sun was pleasant to the naked skin, but once the day hit 10 AM, it was punishing. The jacket was needed just to stay hydrated and prevent the skin from burning under the sun. Then from Miami to Orlando, afternoon thunderstorms are common, it may be intensely sunny and 15 minutes later a thunderstorm is upon you dropping rain the size of a small fist as hundreds begin hitting you by the minute. Without the leather the pain would be intense, probably unbearable. So because I ride a motorcycle every day of the year I wear a leather jacket every day as well. I have an additional problem, I often meet people where my leather jacket has to go along with a suit and tie. It would be disrespectful to the people I see to show up in a biker jacket with studs looking like I’m going to Sturgis—so I need my leather jacket to look as good as the cloth underneath it. So with all that in mind I have only found one company in the entire world that made a jacket fitting for me and that is U.S. Wings outside of Cleveland, Ohio founded by Sgt. David D. Hack, the Purple Heart recipient and Nation’s #1 US Army recruiter from 69 to 73. He’s been Chief of Police in Sebring, Ohio, and in his spare time founded U.S. Wings in 1986 to the present. His company knows how to make cloths that fit my very intense lifestyle. So you can imagine dear reader how disappointed I was when I went to zip up my well-worn flight jacket a few weeks ago and the teeth were so worn out from use that they no longer gripped each other.
I contacted U.S. Wings to price a new zipper and liner and they responded quickly. The zipper replacement was $60 and the liner replacement was $90, plus shipping the jacket to the New Jersey plant where most of the construction takes place. It was still winter where the nights are often in the mid 20s so I had to be able to zip up the jacket—it simply couldn’t wait. But after careful consideration, even though the stitching all over the jacket was still very much intact it was decided that it was time to retire that jacket and buy a new one. A new jacket from U.S. Wings costs about the same as a good firearm but considering my use, a new one was better than fixing the old one so I placed an order for one of their Signature Series flight jackets with nearly the exact specs.
The order was placed and a few days later the jacket arrived on my doorstep ready for battle. I literally took it out of the box, tried it on for fitting and left the house on my motorcycle. When you meet with people they can tell instantly whether the jacket is a cheap rip-off from some shopping mall vender selling “club” clothing or some piece of crap made for the herds at various coat suppliers destined to be sold in the future at a flea market. It doesn’t matter so much if the jacket is stained from sweet, rain, bugs, or heat streaked, they can tell if it is of quality and if it’s not it won’t look right with a suit and a $500 dollar watch. But U.S. Wing jackets are just fine for this kind of thing and suit both necessities perfectly. The jackets are of a quality where their value never comes into question.
When I bought the first jacket six years ago Hack’s company sent with it some bonus items free of charge—a book about Hack’s life which was actually quite good and a free Moko Man hat which I wear often. As this new jacket arrived I expected him to send something extra, but wasn’t all that shocked when only the jacket was inside. The economy had been hard for everyone, so I figured that U.S. Wings had given up on those kinds of perks to save money. Two days after the arrival of the jacket it was a Saturday and one of my nephews was at my house playing Star Wars: X Wing with myself and one of my son-in-laws as we noticed the mail man driving up our driveway. He dropped off a package and neither my wife nor I expected to receive anything. We took the usual protocols when examining something unusual which arrives at our home, but my concerns quickly alleviated once I saw the U.S. Wings logo on the box.
U.S. Wings had sent a special delivery of free items, a DVD music video titled “The Ballad of Sergeant Hack” by Erica Lane and a special single song CD by the same musical artist called “Believe in America.” Inside also was a special bag designed to protect expensive garments while traveling, such as U.S. Wing jackets and tailored suits. It was a cost that U.S. Wings did not have to incur, they could have just sent the jacket, but as usual they went above and beyond.
The song, “The Ballad of Sergeant Hack” can be heard on the first video on this article along with other videos which give an ideal who David Hack is, and why he is one of those unique people whose personality inevitably comes out in his company U.S. Wings. Hack is a guy who personally wrote President Johnson complaining that he wanted to go to Ranger school. He volunteered for Vietnam during a time when many people were dodging the draft and was a recruiter on the active front designated to reenlist soldiers who were set to rotate out of the combat zones. Needless to say, Sergeant Hack is the real deal and that personality certainly comes out in the clothing line of U.S. Wings.
Hack’s patriotism is genuine. He’s obviously not happy with the direction of the country currently—and his sentiments are much older than the Tea Party. He’s not a “come lately” to the ideal of patriotism and is truly one of the unique people of American culture. I purchase my leather jackets from U.S. Wings because there simply are not better jackets made by any other manufacturer in the world when it comes to military clothing and rugged apparel. I would not trust my jackets to be made by a roving communist from the East or a socialist from Europe or a conquered soul in Russia. U.S. Wing jackets are purely American and made for American lifestyles, and they are the only kind of jacket that I’ll wear.
As is often the case, the company U.S. Wings is the embodiment of its creator, Sergeant Hack and the quality he has directly infused into a great American company. In a day where most things are imports from other countries done cheaply out of necessity, U.S. Wings jackets have an emblem inside all their garments which actually sends a chill up my spine every time I see it—which is every day because I put those jackets on every day. U.S. Wings is a company that I trust because I trust Sergeant Hack and know that he puts a lot of extra effort into the reputation of his company. Most companies that make coats, shoes, boots, or even farm equipment have fallen from grace because the personalities of their creators, the Chief Executive Officers who utilize capitalism to bring joy to the world lose touch with their initial passions. When it comes to U.S. Wings, even after many years of existence, over a long-span of time, their quality and effort are matched by their past performance and it is one of the rare honors that I have had to open a package from them and see what’s inside. Often it is the little things that matter, and when it comes to U.S. Wings a lot of little things add up to greatness, from the quality of their stitching to the measurements of their segments—to the quality of the actual leather. And even when they don’t have to—because the product speaks for itself, David Hack wants his customers to know more about him, so that they know what they are getting is the real deal that won’t falter when they need it most. And when it comes to leather jackets there aren’t any better made.
And now that you’ve read all this, watch all the videos completely and know that what you are seeing is a deep tap-root into American exceptionalism and be damn proud of it.
“Uwe and Hannelore Romeike came to the United States in 2008 seeking political asylum. They fled their German homeland in the face of religious persecution for homeschooling their children.They wanted to live in a country where they could raise their children in accordance with their Christian beliefs. So they came to The United States. The Romeikes were initially given asylum, but the Obama administration objected – claiming that German laws that outlaw homeschooling do not constitute persecution. Obama’s administration essentially decided that the relationship America had with Germany was more important than the individual beliefs of the citizens who wished to flee a system they did not wish to participate in. Obama’s administration built their case against the Romeikes by saying, “The goal in Germany is for an open, pluralistic society,” the Justice Department wrote in a legal brief last year. “Teaching tolerance to children of all backgrounds helps to develop the ability to interact as a fully functioning citizen in Germany.”On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the Romeike’s appeal siding with the Justice Department and Germany – paving the way for the Christian family of eight to be deported.”
An actress who was formerly quiet about her political beliefs has come out against what she calls “a progressive agenda” in America’s public schools. (It’s about time.)Sam Sorbo, the wife of “Hercules” actor Kevin Sorbo, homeschools her children and recently began publicly writing about the topic of education.“Of course school is the most political, because that’s where the progressive agenda is coming out the strongest and the hardest,” said Sorbo.“You people who send your kids to school, you have no idea what the schools are doing to their fresh little brains, in brainwashing them into this progressive, liberal—it’s antithetical to America, the agenda that they’re being indoctrinated with,” Sorbo said.
While it is good to see people pushing back against the government schools in America, the problem is not isolated to only The United States—it is a global problem. When it is mentioned that progressivism has infected the schools of the world, it is in all actuality socialism and communism that those schools are teaching. The Romeikes fled Germany hoping to gain freedom in America, but were turned away by the Obama administration who otherwise promotes “open boarders.” Obama supports illegal immigration, he supports tolerance of other cultures—until the culture is a Christian one looking to flee the international grip that progressives have on public schools. The Justice Department is seeking to preserve that grip, which is why they singled out this simple family to make a point to all others considering such a move.
Some high-profile Hollywood types are beginning to smell what’s been cooking for a long time, people like Sam Sorbo. Some of us, particularly at this site of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom have been against public education for a long time and it is refreshing to see people finally starting to stand up for themselves and calling out public education and the commitment to progressive politics which is taught there. But we are far deeper down the well than a lot of people care to admit to.
It should be obvious by Obama’s actions what the goal of public education is not just in America, but across the world—they wish to capture the minds of every child born and to reshape those minds into compliant government drones obedient to the state governed by The United Nations. This is why Obama cares about the feelings of Germany instead of feeling honored that the Romeikes wished to trade away all they ever knew for a land of the unknown in America so that they could remove their children away from the progressive teaching of the world’s public schools controlled by government.
The crazed progressives know that so long as homeschooling options exists that some children will escape from their grip and will grow up to become exceptional—and compared to the mindless drones from the public schools, the imbalance will be obvious—and the government schools will be viewed as failures. The only way the progressive model can succeed over the long haul is to remove the value judgment of an option so that children have nowhere but the government to instruct them—superseding their parents.
This is why Obama injected his administration into the poor situation of the Romeikes, and the Supreme Court played right along with the global deception. (I heard one commentator on Fox mystified that the Supreme Court ruled in this way since most of them were appointed by “conservative” presidents. The “Bush” presidents were not conservative—they were both progressive types—for the record. Ronald Reagan was a born again progressive espousing conservative value at the end of his life, but spent all the years’ prior sympathetic to socialist, communist, and progressive causes. The Supreme Court is not a conservative body of legal analysis) Thank goodness people like Sam Sorbo are finally speaking out against public education because if more people knew what was really going on in public education more people would be clearly upset. The Obama administration would not be so confident to deport the Romeikes while at the same time advocating the merits of illegal immigration for every drug dealer, whore, and child molester who wishes to cross America’s boarders and plant themselves into neighborhoods in every city of The United States. Out of all those people, the Romeikes are a far greater threat to Obama and the country of Germany because of what they represent—a resistance to the progressive attack on the children of the world—an attack against their minds—and future. The level of attention given to the Romeikes by supposedly the most powerful man in the world—President Obama is validation that everything and more said by Sam Sorbo is true and far more dangerous than anybody is yet ready to admit.
