When the discussion of merit between individuality and collectivism is considered, its social manifestations illuminate most dominate in our love of institutions. A love of institutions is collectivism, and carries the most blame for much of the world’s troubles. For instance, I was asked the other day how I felt about the up coming season for my favorite football team The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My response was that I’d have to wait and see, because the coaching staff was new and I didn’t know what to think without them playing a game yet. The assumption was that I would blindly support The Bucs regardless of performance, which I would consider idiotic. I may root for them but I won’t blindly support any collective entity on the bases of an institutional name.
For instance, supporters of The Cincinnati Bengals have through their institutional support of a losing franchise allowed a bad owner to use tax payer money to fund his financial enterprise putting Hamilton County into serious debt funding Paul Brown Stadium for 8 games a year. The Bengals as an organization are doing the same thing that Lakota and Colerain public schools is doing and that is to use a publics loyalty toward sports to sell institutional support for a larger enterprise. When people support an institution just because of loyalty to a name, they allow themselves to become victims of institutional failure. Radicalized public unions in public school can hide their true intentions behind the patriotism of school pride unified behind a sports team. People do pass school levies over such silly presumptions. Just as they passed a stadium tax in the 90’s to keep the Bengals from leaving only to discovery it would bankrupt Hamilton County. Since the problems are too complex to grapple with fans of the Bengals have decided win, lose, or draw, they are going to support their home town NFL Football team no matter what it costs.
To understand the severity of institutional worship all one needs to do is look at the sex cover-up at Penn State involving Jerry Sandusky. To the degree that seemingly sane administrators protected the institution of Penn State Football, members of the media, and many years worth of alumni all chose to ignore the facts in favor of serving the institution as a collective whole.
The obvious confusion comes in mistaking patriotism with worship. There is a difference in honoring the President of the United States with respect and forgiving the crimes committed by a President because his position is one of institutional honor. Collectivists consider it honorable to show devotion even in the face of wrongdoing. The idea of “taking one for the team” is a commonly accepted rationale among collectivist thinking people. Notice the trend proclaiming that there no I in “team” is rooted in this commitment toward collectivism where the individual is secondary to the “the greater good.”
This is a disease in American culture that is not native to our country. America was founded on individuality and this is why no place else on the face of planet earth has societies of difference cultures, different religions, and different financial backgrounds where they mingle in a free society better than in The United States. The disease comes from the trend of collectivists who embrace a global society under the umbrella of collectivist political philosophies, to point out circumstances in American society where collective groups—such as women, gays, racial minorities are suffering an injustice at the hands individuals, or groups with their roots in classic American individuality.
Collectivist tendencies are the direct result of our education system. They are to blame for why there is only a two party political system where one side roots for one set of ideas, while the other party roots for other ideas. Both political parties have the idea of what’s good for the party in their hearts over the well being of the individuals in that party. At the RNC Convention in Tampa the scripted delegates were expected to throw their support behind Mitt Romney instead of Ron Paul out of loyalty to their party, not the individuality of the delegates, and this is a fundamental flaw that has it’s tentacles in every aspect of American society, and it is fundamentally wrong.
The source of the failure is public education. It is there that all of society was taught incorrectly the merits of collectivism, which has turned the quality of education into a brainwashing session of future lost adults cheering on their children’s high school football team even if the coach and players of that team find themselves embroiled in a scandal. In public education, when such a scandal breaks, a sacrificial victim is picked and tossed to the public to appease the gods just as the Aztecs cut out the hearts of their victims hoping to bring rain to their villages. Ask Stacy Schuler about such sacrifices at Mason High School, because the scandal she was involved in involved the entire school. Yet only she went to jail for having sex with half the football team. The football players were looked upon as heroes, while she was disgraced and sent to the gallows so to speak, because she was expected to take one for the team, for the benefit of the Mason School System.
It’s bad on all levels, and yet we still continue to teach collectivism as though it was good for the future of our country, and it’s not. All institutions have the tendency toward collectivism, and are therefore vehicles for evil. Institutions are publicly considered honorable, yet deep in most hearts of human society there is an inherit distrust of them, because at a fundamental level it is acknowledged that the individual is being crushed by the evil encroachment of collectivism. There is an unease in group activities that says that what is happening is wrong, and people cope with it by drinking too much at social events. But it is known by all, even though it’s not understood consciously.
The villain of the matter is public education and it plagues almost every American citizen who came from public education. The modern problem is in understanding to what extent society has plummeted under the flag of collectivism in service of institutions. To understand what impact such a mentality has had on a country of individuals damaged by a philosophy that is fundamentally wrong the evidence is easy to see. To measure the impact, all that needs to be done is to see the damage that institutions inflict on society at large, and to admit that service to them is as foolish as worshiping some Mesopotamian god in the city streets of UR. Institutions are hokey concoctions built by collectivists on a half-baked journey to hells of their own making, upon the backs of individuals.
That quote comes from an angry mother in the comments section of the following video.
I enjoy comments like that, which I have received in copious amounts, because they say a lot about the kind of people who write them. For perspective, I can’t image writing such a thing to someone unless I’m responding to an attack from someone else. In my case, I have done nothing to the person writing the statement—I have not harmed her child in any way, I have not personally insulted her, I have not brought any ill will to her. The only I have done to cause so much anger, and to provoke such rhetoric is to say no to tax increases at the Lakota School System. The anger does not come from what I have done to her; it comes from what she wishes me to do on her behalf. It comes out of frustration that I am not willing to do what she has designed for me.
To care what someone’s opinion is—is to have respect for the person who gives the opinion. She obviously cares what my opinion is; otherwise she wouldn’t try to alter my direction with insults. To go out-of-the-way to actually insult someone, the goal is to change their behavior with peer pressure, through the condemnation. If the person being insulted does not value the opinion of the antagonist, then the insult has no power, and this is what led to the severity of her comments.
While it is true that I do insult the Obama presidency, unions, Democrats, sometimes Republicans, corrupt politicians, teachers caught in disgraceful acts, along with other issues, my comments come from anger that the people who took money from me as a tax payer are misusing it. If those people did not take something from me at some point, I would not otherwise care about the merit of their actions, but because they do, I am determined to get my money’s worth when something goes wrong. If they waste my money, they are going to hear about it, because honestly, I work too hard to make it. I do not enjoy seeing it squandered away by thieves. This is a big difference from what someone like the commenter above does, and what I do. Her anger derives from me not doing what she wishes me to, and my insults are simply getting back the value of my money spent. When I dish out insults it is to let the people know that I do not approve of how they are spending my money, and if they don’t want to hear it, then they shouldn’t take my money.
When I first became involved in the school levy issues the insults that were thrown in my direction by the same kind of pro levy supporters were that I should try to teach a class so I would know how difficult it is. My response was that I would be happy to teach a class at Lakota. In fact, I told a reporter for Spark Magazine, with the intention of Dean Hume to see it, that I would not only teach one class, but I’d teach three classes at the same time, just to show how easy it was, and to prove those teaching positions were not worth paying employees $60K per year. They didn’t take me up on my offer, so I have done my teaching here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom covering topics ranging from education reform, world history, comparative religion, mythological studies, American history, legal analysts, economic theory, literary review and many, many other issues. Basically, if a reader here wants to know something all they need to do is Google OVERMANWARRIOR, and the “KEYWORD” of their choice. Love, sex, marriage, political theory, science, psychology, just name the category and it has probably been covered here. I have written enough free information here to fill ten 100,000 word books and I have done it in my spare time, really just for fun. For all these highly paid teachers whom I heard so much about how they sacrifice so much to help children on their own time after their 7.5 hour work day is complete and getting paid very well to do it, I don’t see them going to the extra trouble I have to even back up their claims. I have seen them attempt to strike in 2008 and complain about their health insurance costs going up, but their idea of sacrifice is grading papers while they watch TV at home. I wrote ten novels worth of information for free, to help those who want to know the truth–who want to understand how things really work, and to learn what they should be learning in public education. Sometimes I do get a bit insulting, but it’s my prerogative. The bottom line is that those teachers, administrators and levy advocates have been exposed as frauds, as lazy and overpaid sloths that are too specialized and conduct their life as social parasites.
I know there are school board members at Lakota who have master’s degrees in education. I know there are teachers and parents who sincerely do care about the education of the community’s youth, but I am baffled as to why these people have not started blogs like the one I have here to compete with me, to counter my offerings with their version of the facts representing their own viewpoint. If I were a teacher making six figures, I can promise this much, I would have an education blog and I would be trying to teach the whole world everything I knew, since my living would be taken care of by the community tax payers. My proof is in the work I’ve already done. I would expect nothing less from the supposed sacrificial teachers and administrators, who claim they live, eat and breathe the benefit of their students. If that were the case, they would do a lot more for free, and they wouldn’t bitch about it by constantly asking for pay increases.
The real answer to why there aren’t more education blogs and education employees who are volunteering their time and energy for the sake of education is because they are really only in the business of teaching kids because they expect to be paid, and paid well. The reason these people think of me as vile, as disgusting, as the greatest, most diabolical threat to the security of the Lakota School District is because my actions expose their true intentions, which is to make as much money on the backs of children and pretend it’s for the greater good of humanity– that it’s a sacrifice they take at great personal cost. The reality is that those education employees are spouting union talking points, and the parents who support school levies do so because deep down inside, they are simply looking for a babysitter. If they really cared, they would go above and beyond, but they don’t.
Instead, they are using a tactic that was exposed here at this site almost two years ago called The Delphi Technique as a way to hit up tax payers for additional money to pay for their already inflated wages. The advocates of future school levies aren’t even smart enough to not call paying $167,000 for 2 different “facilitators,” to help Lakota pass a levy by name. Again Lakota is wasting money to try to pass a levy instead of just balancing their own budget with cuts to their labor! With these new facilitators they are going door to door into as many living rooms in the district over the next 6 months as possible and giving their speech as to why tax payers should pass a levy. They want a person on every street to have a “facilitator” meeting that includes everyone else on their street. That is the choice Lakota has made instead of doing any real work. The whole process is right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. The word “Facilitator” in this case comes straight out of The Delphi Technique. They are so arrogant that they didn’t even try to hide what they are doing. Click the link below to see how it works.
So when these people call me names it’s not because of the comments I make. My anger magnifies when those same people hire “facilitators” to attempt to tell me and the community I live in that the sky is green and the grass is purple and expect the statement to go unchallenged. If those people want to call me names, it comes from their anger at being exposed for what they really are. They desire to keep the truth hidden from even themselves, let alone public scrutiny, and they make statements to such an extreme effect hoping it stops my behavior. The roots of their indiscretions are to prevent resistance with an insane peer pressure tactic that is deeply troubling, and a blatant attack on reasonable thinking.
Contextually, calling me a vile, disgusting human being is more of a plea than anything. It’s a cry out to stop holding up the mirror which shows how ugly these strange collectivist levy advocates behave in the light of day, in full view of everyone. It is just as insane as walking naked in public and expecting nobody to notice, then getting mad when someone points it out. The profanity is simply a mask intended to hide a laziness that is evident to everyone. Never again can a teacher or administrator write me under a fake email address and declare that I should try teaching, because I have already done it. I do it here every day, and I do it in larger amounts than any handful of professionals employed in the field of education. So the argument of the teacher sacrifice has also flown out the window forever, because people outside the school system see how little teachers actually do compared to their own occupations, and how whiny they sound with their silly organized labor pleas. It is for that exposure that the name calling comes in my direction, because the dirty little secrets of the education monopoly have been exposed, and they are embarrassed, as well they should be. For that reason, every insult to me is an honor that I cherish, and the worse, the better because of the meaning behind the act.
One of the top 100 places to live in the entire United States is West Chester, Ohio. In 2012 it comes in at #97 which is extremely commendable. This is not the first time that West Chester has ranked in the top 100, which takes economic factors, quality of schools, social life, crime rates, and projected demographic forecasts into the equation. The region around West Chester hosts nearly 100,000 people who shop, work and live in the thriving community that is one of the best places on planet earth to reside. The real factors for why West Chester has been so successful is because there are smart people who live in West Chester, it’s very pro gun, so crime is very low, and it is still run by trustees, which is very direct representation by the citizens. West Chester still has a small town feel with big business wealth generation. West Chester as a business community supports very high-tech business, fine dinning, and has within it just about every conceivable chain restaurant known in the country. It is such a diverse community that it can even support one of the most unusual gun targeting ranges in the entire United States in a business that just open called Shoot Extreme. CHECK IT OUT, CLICK HERE.
Like anywhere in the country however the temptation for decline is ever-present, and in West Chester the desire of the “wanna’ be” communist, the “wanna’ be” socialists, the bottomless pit school levy supporters, the endless fire levies, policies levies, and a yearning to loot from every business in the community and the people who work in them contains the same level of addiction as the typical porn advocate. In West Chester, those types of people are the ones who desire to incorporate West Chester into a city from its current state of a township. These are the people who desire centralized planning, chaotic bureaucracy to hide the corruption that pads their pockets with extra income, but more than anything a nameplate on their desk which tells the community that they are important.
The dream of these functioning socialists are to become city council members who control millions of dollars, and ultimately to have their worthless fingers on the value of business owners who are thriving in West Chester currently. These are the types of people who do not have the ability to produce worth on their own, because they are simply barnacles who act as parasites on society by imposing their will on those who actually create jobs, wealth, and the quality index reflected in the top #100 rating. The advocates of West Chester incorporating wear masks of civic duty to disguise their power grab and part of that mask are cleverly disguised arguments that conceal their tendency to loot, suppress, and control thriving industries by advocating four primary motivations to move from a township to a city. They are:
1) Business’s are not paying their fair share of taxes, (sound familure—Obama comes to mind)
2) A city would be more efficient, (which is completely false. The opposite is always true.)
3) Becoming a city will lower residential property taxes. (False because the same advocates of a city are the same idiots who support endless school levies, any tax savings will be gobbled up by the radical unionized labor of West Chester’s largest employer, Lakota Schools. Cincinnati Public Schools and Princeton come to mind, both have outrageous per pupil teaching costs due to their looting school boards aligned with high tax city councils.)
4) Becoming a city would be more prestigious. (What is more prestigious than being one of the best areas to live in the country? West Chester is already there. Becoming a city would take West Chester into the other direction–Section 8 housing because it makes people feel “worldly and enlightened,” even though it’s just another form of human slavery, larger government enterprises, and more complicated zoning regulations to justify the jobs created by bloated city councils.)
Just like with school levies, the people who typically run for school board and city councils tend to be left leaning political types who fall in love with the prestige a nameplate on their desk gives them. This is because they are not successful people in regular life, and they seek to fill those voids with public service. The smart people, the wealth creators, the right thinking people tend not to run for political office because their time is simply worth too much per hour. To give away 15 to 20 hours a week to community politics is a waste of their time, so it is usually only the fools who run for office, and have no idea how things work in actuality. To expand on the arguments above in favor of incorporation consider these more detailed facts:
1) According o West Chester’s Zoning Dept, about 35% of land in West Chester is zoned for business. This 35% is about 60% developed. According to the Butler County Auditor, this 35% currently pays 58% of taxes collected compared to 42% for residential (keep in mind that residential comprises about 65% of available land in West Chester).
% of Land% of Tax PaidIndex
Business 35% 58% 166%
Residential 65% 42% 64%
To further exacerbate the problem, according to American Farmland Trust, for every $1.00 a resident pays in taxes, they take out about $1.22 in services; for every $1.00 a business pays in taxes, they take out about $.45 in services.
The incorporation movement wants to punish the group that is carrying the majority of the burden…talk about killing the goose!
2) Relative to a city being more efficient a township is the most efficient form of government currently allowed by ORC. The Cincinnati Business Courier in 2008 ran a list of the largest tri-state governments. Included in that list were number of employees and total population. According the CBC, West Chester had 1 employee for every 232 people living in the community. How does that compare to all of the cities on the list? See below.
Municipality Employees/Population
West Chester 1/232
Cincinnati 1/63
Hamilton 1/88
Middletown 1/129
Covington 1/128
Fairfield 1/153
Mason 1/156
Norwood 1/118
Blue Ash 1/80
Lebanon 1/148
Newport 1/115
Oxford 1/174
You only have to look in the papers to see what is going on in most cities around West Chester. The financial outlook is bleak. West Chester is very healthy. Our Carryover (retained earnings in the corporate world) has grown from $700,000 five years ago to $13,000,000 today. You would be hard pressed to find a city that is more efficient than a township.
3) Lowering property tax? Don’t believe this for a minute. Government does not give money back. West Chester currently comprises less than 20% of the property tax bill received by its residents. Let’s pretend that by incorporating we can lower our property tax (not likely but let’s pretend). If we can lower West Chester’s portion of your property tax bill by 20%, it would only lower your total bill by less than 4%. How do West Chester property taxes compare withy other cities located close by? In 2008, the effective tax on a $200,000 property in the following communities was:
CommunityTax
West Chester $3,604
Loveland $4,030
Middletown $3,629
Cincinnati $3,526
Mason $3,453
3) Being a city is more Prestigious…compared to what? By being a township, without extra money to spend, we are able to stay focused on our core competencies; Public Safety and infrastructure. On March 13, 2008, Moody’s Investor Service raised West Chester’s rating to Aa1 for General Obligation Various Purpose Bonds. This is the highest rating of any community in Ohio! Money Magazine in 2006 Ranked West Chester as the 45th most desirable community to live in America. They stated that the only thing hurting West Chester was the lack of medical services. With the opening of the state of the art West Chester Medical Center, that problem has been solved.
The proponents of incorporation discuss the fact that people living in West Chester but working in another city currently pay an income tax anyway. If reciprocity is not granted, these citizens will pay a tax to both communities. For example, if you currently live in Wyoming and work in Cincinnati, you pay a 2.1% tax to Cincinnati, and a 2% tax to Wyoming, for a total of 4.1%. Given the state of today’s economy, reciprocity is not a given. The argument in favor of a city tax is no different from a thief claiming the resident’s money as their own by saying the residents are already giving their money to another thief elsewhere.
Proponents of incorporation also say that by becoming a city West Chester will gain more power and control. They are correct! This will transfer power and control from citizens to the government. As a township, West Chester can not raise taxes without a vote of the people. As a city, this can be accomplished with a vote of council and is the real intention. The desire to incorporate West Chester is the desire to loot the public. The only people who would benefit are the socialist leaning politicians who are advocating it. The benefits of incorporation are only masks to the sinister aim of more bureaucracy, higher taxes, and more centralized control over community activity. The aim of that activity is not rooted in capitalism, but socialism. The dream of these goofy left leaning tax advocating losers would be to see businesses like Shoot Extreme end, while more families would gather on the lawn outside of the West Chester Library to listen to the future city council members pander their socialist dreams with more sidewalks and group hug social events. The key is that city council members would decide which businesses succeed or fail implemented through tax regulation and zoning ordinances, as opposed to the determinations of capitalism. This happens to a small degree now as the pub I mentioned here with great reverence just a few months ago went out of business triggered by zoning issues and unfriendly business practices. CLICK TO REVIEW. Becoming a city would create more of that behavior not less.
The essence of such advances toward cityhood are the crux of many spirited debates when communities far into the future wonder where their declines began. They are concocted in the mind of functioning socialists whose only logic skills are managing parks and other utopian public concepts that are non-profit in their orientation. Cities are big, and too complex to manage by a part-time staff of trustees, and are attempts at government expansion by progressive minded individuals. They are a detriment to a thriving economy, and only benefit the political class, as everyone else in such communities find themselves subservient to liberal mysticism. And that is not the direction that a great community like West Chester should be contemplating even remotely. The advocates are simply looters with their eye on a potential prize of $20 million dollars of additional revenue that could be tallied up by the politicians and their love of nameplates. The money is to be spent creating jobs that report to the politicians who stole the money to begin with; so that in their small, futile minds, they can pat themselves on the back and pretend they are job creators just like the rest of the businesses in West Chester who are currently successful whereas the politicians are not.
For the back-story on this issue refer to the below article:
A lot has been said about the massive, destructive car chase in my new novel Tail of the Dragon and how the hero Rick Stevens refuses to yield to any force other than his own impulse to live. But that does not mean that my latest book is strictly for men who like fast cars and violence. No, there’s a more complicated component that brings a texture to the story that is not so subtle, and that is the sex in Tail of the Dragon.
In Tail of the Dragon we have the opposite issue; Rick Stevens and his wife Renee are on a personal journey that does not involve fear, or repression leading them to sexual acts that are quite explicit, particularly the one on the balcony of a Gatlinburg hotel. The sex is purposely audacious and flagrant because those are attributes of Rick Stevens authenticity as a person, which leads to the extreme events of the novel in a non sexual way, just as in real life. If a person is willing to repress their sexual nature, they are also likely to repress their political views, their spiritual convictions, and their yearning for personal independence.
Fifty Shades of Grey has set a new standard for sex in a mainstream novel. As we speak literary agents are dusting off every erotic manuscript anyone has ever sent them because publishers are about to unleash upon the publishing world a slew of erotic fiction designed to ride the coat tails of Fifty Shades of Grey. Before this novel hit the public, publishers frowned down on the heavy use of the “F” word and the very descriptive sex that can go on between characters in a story. Fifty Shades of Grey is in every essence pornography, and it is now sold at Target, and local grocery stores which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago. The sex in Tail of the Dragon is done with much less profanity out of personal taste and editorial direction. My editor at American Book wanted me to clean up the sex which is very descriptive, because that is the standard America Book has. They do not publish erotica, so they expect their authors to find alternatives to such blatant imagery. I suspect that the policy will be reviewed in the wake of Fifty Shades of Grey, since that book was originally published non-traditionally as a print-on-demand title, in other words—self published. Word of mouth carried it over into the mainstream audience where legitimate publishers have picked it up after it became popular.
Sex however is as important to the human condition as drinking water, eating food, or learning to speak. It has as much reverence as conducting political policies. In a novel, such emotions are expected to be dealt with, so when exploring extreme notions, the sex must reflect the journey. In the case of Rick Stevens and his wife Renee the sex is designed to show what a healthy relationship between two longtime mates do with one another. If they have sex occasionally in public, it is not because they are extraverted exhibitionists; it is because when they are together, they have tuned everyone else out, and so the sexual act is a contextual agreement between them of which the rest of the world is excluded. The world may watch like caged animals at a zoo, but the passions for which Rick and Renee partake in are not for the sake of the collective society, but for themselves only.
Renee Stevens is a woman who is constructively submissive to her husband. When Rick wants sex, she gives it to him without question, and without games. In return, Rick does not have impotency problems like many middle-aged men. This leaves Rick and Renee to often have sex several times a day and not just once or twice a week. The point of course is not to show that Rick and Renee Stevens are sex addicts’ hell bent on perverted sexual sign stimuli for the unhealthy act of satisfying inner demons, but a healthy couple in love willing to satisfy the needs of their partners in a mutual fulfillment, the way a marriage should be.
Men and women join together to form families because they want to have sex with each other. At the most fundamental function of the marriage, what sets a couple apart is that they have sex. If sex was not involved, then the couple would merely be friends. It is sex that makes a marriage. When marriage is mentioned, the first thought is sex. Couples unite to have sex and to keep it safe between them in the context of a relationship. So in Tail of the Dragon which is about being authentic to oneself in every way, even when the law attempts to impose the beliefs of politics upon the sanctity of a spiritual union, sex must be robust and an important part of the story without being profane.
The sex in Tail of the Dragon is something I wouldn’t hesitate to tell my grown daughters about for the sake of their own sanity, and I have. My wife and I have traveled all over creation on the back of a motorcycle, and I can report that the sex of Rick and Renee have their roots in reality, because sometimes after a hard day of riding, sweating, and being on the edge of your senses, sex does happen often and anywhere once the shackles of orthodox confinement are outran. And in Tail of the Dragon, the story is all about outrunning orthodox confinement, so the subject is unavoidable.
Be advised, the video you see below is real. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans it was but a looking-glass into the future, where the slightest catastrophe can dictate cops, firefighters, and military forces kicking in our doors to search for guns or other “unsafe” items deemed unfit by their superiors, today’s pin headed bureaucrat. And I can say that the day a group of 21 year-old-boys dressed in military gear comes to my home to kick in my door in search of anything, there will be big trouble—because to me they are only boys with guns, and I do not blindly honor the system they represent. More and more I am beginning to let myself think this way so it’s not such a shock when President Obama or his successor makes a national emergency into martial law because the economy has collapsed due to overwhelming debt, and United Nations Agenda 21 is to be implemented to bring stability to the world of interconnected economies suspending The United States Constitution. With a national debt of 16 trillion dollars it can happen quickly, and it may very well be the end game of such irresponsible federal spending. Watch carefully, and completely.
I hope truly that those years of martial law attempts are a long way down the pike, but I suspect that the most immediate threat is actually closer in time. There is a real anxiety brewing within the Obama Administration that when Romney wins, which all indicators appear to be a foregone conclusion–the Presidential race is nowhere near as close as the media wishes it to be–that Obama plans to hang on to his seat with emergency powers.
When I first heard this I had my skepticism, until I saw the below article from American Thinker, by Stella Paul. American Thinker has published a bit of my stuff before so I have a pretty good idea what kind of strict guidelines they have for the type of claims that Stella is making in this article. In fact I’ll go as far to say that she would have to have very hard evidence before American Thinker would publish such a serious article about the extreme measures Obama and his team of infiltrators are planning. In the context of the video above, the implications are quite chilling, and should not be taken lightly. These politicians on both sides are power-hungry fools addicted to power, and in Obama’s case, he is a nobody without the presidency, so he will fight hard to keep the job. He’s a puppet for global interests, and without a hand up his caboose making his lips move, the prospect of being an empty toy tossed into the corner most likely terrifies him in a very real way.
Desperation is what comes to mind from the emails I regularly receive from The White House these days. Obama knows he’s in trouble and the investors who put him in power and wish to keep him in power are worried. Since it is now highly suspected that Obama and his investors wish communism for America, much of the flow of money is going to Romney who also represents the established order of things, but at least he believes in free markets with lower taxes with only the minimum amount of crony capitalism. So for economic reasons, the money is going to Romney, because under Obama, America will see its superpower status disappear with just a few more months of his next administration, let alone a few more years. Not all the people who control the flow of money want to see America ended. That is why Romney is getting the money this time around.
The fear is easy to see in the actual emails like the one below supposedly from Obama himself. Obama knows he is political toast unless something miraculous happens. Obama is such a tragedy that I seriously do have my doubts that he would be able to surrender his power upon an election loss. There is too much at stake for Obama’s kind who wishes to tear down American and remake it with the clay of the United Nations to give up.
Friend —
It’s August 23rd. And 75 days from now, I’ll either be looking at another four years in the White House — or the end of this opportunity.
I know what’s at stake for the parents worrying about health care, the kids who need help to go to college, and the seniors who want a secure retirement.
But we’re getting outspent by wide margins in critical battleground states — and what we do about that today could be the difference between winning and losing on November 6th.
So as we near one of the last fundraising deadlines of this campaign, I’m asking you to pitch in $5 or whatever you can right now:
You have got to be kidding me. Yesterday, Mitt Romney said, and I quote:
“No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”
This actually makes me feel sick when I think about it — what it means when the leader of the Republican Party, a presidential candidate, stoops to this level.
The scariest part? His comment was met with cheers. It certainly fired up the extreme “birther” elements of the Republican base.
This has to stop, and it has to stop now. There’s only one way to do that — by making sure President Obama and Democrats across the board win on Election Day.
Donate $3 or more now to give Democrats the resources they need to cut through this crap and do what it takes to win in 73 days:
The days when economic collapse sends our own troops into our front doors may actually be closer due to President Obama appearing to panic over his slimming chances of being re-elected and the mountains of lies his administration is attempting to shove under the rug—such as Fast and Furious, which is a bigger scandal than Watergate. If Stella Paul from The American Thinker article is even a little bit right, we are in big, big trouble sooner than later. And God forbid that she is right about it all, which the evidence may indicate that she is. If that’s the case, then a peaceful transition of power is simply not possible.
There are a lot of interests who wish to control the flow of business in our Republic. They desire a chaotic democracy which they can then use the divide and conquer strategy of lobby power to control our government with a shadow-like influence. They desire these things out of their own interests, which is to be expected. But they are not allowed to rule with impunity. And they are not allowed to steal our money in the form of taxes only to use what we purchase in the way of military troops, equipment, and other government employees and shackle us under martial law by them. Obama is surely one of their puppets, and I would say a more dangerous one than Romney. But all politicians concern me greatly these days, so much so that I no longer thank service men for their tours of duty, or cops for treading the thin-blue-line. The reality is that soon, the allies that we all are today, will be against each other tomorrow, and when that day comes I don’t want to think about the bright-eyed future of the 21 year-old kid who joined the military to pay for his college, and has been sent to my house to confiscate my property on behalf of some bureaucratic comb-over pot-bellied pig of a politician, protecting the whims of chaos which keeps them in power.
War and violence is in the air and it won’t be in Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or anywhere in Africa. No, it will be in our city streets against our friends and neighbors, and it will come on the winds of tyranny from politicians who have not yet filled their mission parameters, and need more time to use the wrecking ball of their own ignorance to implement the changes designed to profit penthouse kings, and their legions of boot lickers. The Second Amendment is in our Constitution to protect us from those unfortunate power grabs, and because of that knowledge, I no longer make peace with people in uniform. I eye them with suspicion the way a fighter about to enter an arena of death eyes his next opponent with wrapped hands, muscles flexed, and determined eyes ready to strike before being struck the moment the conflict begins.
In this last video, there is a bit of socialism in the arguments presented, but the point is one that can be shared with those of us who know how all the dots connect. And the point is fairly obvious. Crony capitalism is just as wrong as communism, and politics does not exist to protect the business of men from further competition, and to a large extent, that is what has been happening, and Obama certainly represents the visible puppet in this show of power that is corroding all humanity. The debt of 16 trillion dollars that is before us all is an attack on the American way of life, and you bet it is entirely intentional. The end game is coming sooner rather than later.
“Wow, I just finished reading ‘Tail of The Dragon’ and I physically feel like I just got off a roller coaster without the benefit of a safety harness.
If you believe that progressive policies pushed by collectivist politicians can rob a vibrant free and independent country of its spirit, how excited you will be to see one man, desperate for freedom – powerful enough and devoid of chains, who refuses to capitulate, take on a government without a soul and bring it to its knees!
The spirit of Ayn Rand is still alive and is being lived and written about by Rich Hoffman…Galt/Stephens 2016!
I was impressed how this skillful author can tell this story that involves sleazy politics without using profanity.
My draft for Tail of the Dragon had already been turned in to American Publishing and they were considering a contract. I didn’t get the offer for publication from them until the end of May in 2011 so while I was in that in-between zone, I was reading Atlas, and of course found I understood the character of John Galt all too well. Like Ayn Rand I have an idea of what a man ought to be, and my characters reflect that belief. This review given by Lang is not the first time parallels have been drawn between my work and Rand’s that stand out in the mind of my readers.
Most notably in The Symposium of Justice the primary protagonist worked as a grill cook at the restaurant Republics which is a fast foot joint popular in the town of Fort Seven-Mile. In Atlas Shrugged I had a de ja vu moment when Ayn Rand placed Dr. Hugh Akston, who was the college professor of Francisco d’ Anconia, John Galt, and Ragnar Danneskjold, into a similar roll hiding out in the open from the looters of society as a cook at a Colorado diner. The theme in Atlas Shrugged was nearly precisely one that I was trying to capture in The Symposium of Justice and I had found that path by taking the path least trotted upon in the forest where the trees were thickest. These characters found that by working out in the open but in professions that society deemed worthless, they could operate aggressively at reforming the world and the bad guys would not see it, because their minds had become “overly specialized.” In that manner I found that without knowing it, I was very interested in the same types of themes as Ayn Rand and my novels were about those topics.
In Tail of the Dragon even though Rick Stevens is a person who wanted to be a race car driver, he had arrived at a stage in his life relatively socially unmolested, giving him a clear idea of what he wanted from the world, and what was in the way of him getting it. As a man he does not have insecurities about himself, his upbringing, whether or not his wife loves him, whether or not he raised his child correctly, whether or not he could make more money than his neighbors because his focus is on his passion, which I believe should be the focus for all human beings. Rick Stevens is the kind of character who does not believe in yielding to others, he does not believe in compromising himself to politics or social fashion. I had been thinking after I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead that he was the closest kind of character in literature to emerge since John Galt in 1957 and Howard Roark in 1943 – which is my personal favorite now that I have finally gotten around to reading them. Rick Stevens is certainly cut from the same cloth, but at the time I had no way of knowing. What I did know was I wanted to write about a character as I thought men and women should aspire to be, not what they might otherwise compromise themselves into living in reality. The point of an epic story is not to capture reality as it is, but as it should be so that like a sign post on a desolate highway, the wondering reader might find their way to a life they only suspected was possible.
I know George Lang as my business sometimes bumps into his business, and out of all the politicians that I know personally, he is close to my own age and has seen the very ugly side of politics in a unique way. So I asked him to read an advance copy of Tail of the Dragon and confirm that the vile politics in the book were not so over-the-top that it was unbelievable. In my novel, the story is based on real politics so I wanted to paint the picture with the correct colors, and George had some unique insight to that seedy world and could tell me if I was on the right course.
When George finished the book and sent me the above review, I was a bit taken by it, because over the last year and a half I had become an Ayn Rand fan since she was trying to do in the 1930’s and 1940’s what I am trying to do in the first decade of a new century, and that is elevate the perception of what a man is, define why the world needs them to think this way, and what it takes to get there. The fact that George drew parallels to one of the greatest figures in literary history with Rick Stevens is the ultimate compliment.
Like John Galt and Howard Roark from The Fountainhead, Rick Stevens is an uncompromising man in a world that expects compromises at every turn. Stevens is a man that pays no political system honorable worship. He does not stand in salute to any legal judge. He treats the U.S. President like a bell boy in an expensive hotel—a servant, nothing more or less. Stevens is clearly his own man and the conflict of the story is how he navigates through an intricate story of politics and social engineering while trying to maintain his value system.
I am glad that George Lang noticed what I was trying to do. I am sad that there have not been more attempts in literature from the years of Ayn Rand to the beginning of my novels to explore the same type of characters, because I think the world desires them. The world needs them. I discovered them in my own way through years of trying to make sense of humanity and determine how to fix it. Having the ability to fix problems led me to develop my own modern characters that are examples of man the way they should strive to live. When I fix a car I do not change the tires if I discover it will not start. And in life, we don’t worry about education funding, racism, or illegal immigration when the national debt is about to topple over 16 trillion dollars upon this writing. The problem is something besides all those side issues, and must be dealt with before we tackle the kinds of problems tires may give us. All those other things may be concerns, but they are not the keys to solving the key problems before us. Rick Stevens in Tail of the Dragon like John Galt in Atlas Shrugged was meant to be a mirror that the reader can look into and discover something about themselves so they can utilize their part in fixing big international issues. Those things do not get fixed from the far away land of Washington, or the U.N. of Europe, they are fixed in the daily lives of mankind, and a yearning to be more than what is offered on the precipice of our own destruction.
It means a lot to me to have my name included with Ayn Rand by a reviewer who has been in the political trenches up close and personal. The only sadness I feel is that it took more than 60 years to provide literature with another type of character that can show what a man should be in a world that is much like our own. In Tail of the Dragon, it is a heck of a lot of fun reading about Rick doing what nobody in their socially conditioned minds would dare do–take on the entire legal system with the intention of bringing it down to its very knees—by the simple efforts of refusing compromise and yielding to forces that believe they are greater than the effort of an individual.
Being a trustee of West Chester, Ohio is no small task. Even though I disagree often with much of what the trustees do, George Lang has been instrumental in helping to make West Chester fall in at #97 in America’s top 100 places to live. That is no small feat. In the world of local politics, it is in the quest for the exceptional that helps make rankings like that possible, so his opinion of Tail of the Dragon carries great weight with me.
Around the time that Clark wrote his Enquirer article against me, picking sides in the levy fight at Lakota, Doc was fired and out of a job, Judge Napolitano on Fox Business Network was cut even with its excellent ratings, seemingly because of his relentless support of Ron Paul, and efforts of No Lakota Levy to reach across the political divide in the community to levy supporters to create Yes to Lakota Kids found many insiders playing extreme politics, that was not in the best interest for the community. But Bill Cunningham at 700 WLW whom I was openly very critical of because of his stance on Issue 2 and a Marconi winner of his own, I suspected had something to do with Doc being fired at WLW. Cunningham just signed his deal for his new television show and had shown a tendency to want to move more toward the political center after building a career bashing Democrats—he was changing his tone, and Doc represented a new generation of conservative. Cunningham also is the owner of Willies in West Chester where the levy hounds were visiting him to advocate his support for the next levy.
In February Doc was fired, and in March I was publicly being raked over the coals by the same people who had formally supported me. All one has to do is add up the elements and the conditions are obvious. Radio, like the print news is a competitive business and like any other business, employees seek to eliminate each other with brown nosing and sabotage in order to preserve their own careers, so none of this is sinister, or unexpected. It’s just a fact of life.
The reality is that the citizen journalism was changing the media business. Radio had adapted by using me as a frequent guest through the Doc Thompson Show, but once Doc was no longer at 700 WLW the influences who wanted to wipe the chalkboard clean of him did what they felt they had to do, much to their own ratings detriment. Like The Enquirer, many of the guilty parties will lose their jobs in the years to come because of the decisions they have made, meanwhile people like Doc will continue to be successful, in spite of the attempts against him. Doc, like Peter Bronson whom I spoke about in my previous article on this subject is a quality person, so by running them out of the business, the business of newspapers and radio have much less quality because of it. See Peter speak here–good stuff, and well worth the time.
As Peter Bronson’s recent speech at the event above reminded me, the motto in the newsroom used to be “never pick a fight with a person or a company who buys ink by the barrel.” The implication is that newspaper people believe that they can put someone under whom they target at a whim. We’ve seen this for years, when a newspaper gets their targets on someone; they look to bury them publicly. In relation to WLW John Kiesewetter has attempted to put Darryl Parks under many times using a lot of ink. There is an arrogance among newspaper reporters, particularly from old, traditional papers like The Enquirer who have seasoned reporters, that they have the power to make or break careers, or pass or fail levy attempts. They forget that it is their job to report the news so a public can make good decisions; instead they sometimes find they attempt to exercise their power of manipulation to a cause they personally support, or desire as a collection of left leaning public policy advocates.
That was the old world of news reporting, but not the way of the new. In the new, the new adage is that “ink no longer has value. Never pick a fight with a person who can type 1000 words every fifteen minutes and can produce 4000 word articles in an hour, and can do it day after day after day.” And when Lakota as a political entity represented by unionized, radical labor picked a fight with me, and attempted to use the old way to beat me, they had no chance, because I can out write them, out-wit them, out-speak them, and when things get violent and nasty behind the scenes I can give it back to them in doses 100X what they initiated, and that is the new way of citizen journalism.
For an example of how it was that day on WLW, below is the audio from the Bill Cunningham Show speaking with Scott Sloan whom I was on the air with earlier—both having a lot of fun with the salacious Enquirer article, as every radio station owned by Clear Channel, even on the FM dial did. I think on one level they understood what I was doing, even though they played like they didn’t. If it is Cunningham’s idea of an insult to call my actions similar to Rush Limbaugh, then I take it in the opposite regard. But Scott and Bill’s conversation is a fascinating study in what is exactly wrong with public education. Scott Sloan was against me in that broadcast for his own reasons, yet he leans toward my view of things in public education even though he is a lot more socially liberal than I am. Cunningham on the other hand made his living being every bit as boisterous and selling himself as a conservative, but actually living his life as a philanthropic progressive. Cunningham is very much a child of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and that society is failing in every category. As a radio commentator and attorney Cunningham has shown that he is able to identify the problem, but both men have found themselves bitten by the modern trend of the male population to behave as Beta Men, even though deep in their hearts, they know better. You can hear it in their discussion; they are torn between what society has taught them and what they actually believe. Caution, the audio below is very salacious. Listen with caution.
There was no way to explain it to them on March 15th 2012, but I can now with historical context in the wake of the event. I had tried on the Scott Sloan Show earlier, but only time would prove me correct. More money at the state level will not help public education, and property values must be freed from the education debate because it was emotion that placed it there in the first place, due to radicalized unions and voters believing in The Great Society who helped give them power. It is the insecure new mothers and the beta males that has allowed that trend of emotion to take place and it must stop before an intelligent discussion about education funding can take place. Logic must be introduced into the education debate as opposed to the emotion that currently rules, and to my assessment, it does call for yelling and shouting. Pandering to emotional pleas will not solve the problem, and sometimes you have to call it as you see it, which might hurt some feelings. The context of my prostitution comments are explained in great detail in my new book Tail of the Dragon, which was on my mind at the time, since I was editing the final draft when this story broke, so the metaphor was fresh on my mind. For more detail refer to my article about why women like the book Fifty Shades of Grey.
Like newspapers even radio is limited as corporate managers may or may not support public education reform and can put a gag on talk show hosts to exercise their control over the content, and Cunningham has like a shape shifter over time adjusted his beliefs to the powers that control the station he works for.
Doc Thompson on the other hand has been fired by many radio stations for the simple fact that he does his own thing, and this tends to infuriate management. Yet in spite of that, he is a regular guest host on the Glenn Beck Program, and has just signed a deal with CBS radio to go into national syndication while the people who decided to play nicely, and by the old rules, found themselves always in second place behind those who control the rules. The reason Doc and I became friends with a mutual respect is because neither one of us have any love of the old media rules. We do not lick other people’s boots and we treat those old guard media types with contempt. We forge our own path, and do what we think is right for the sake of it. I know that reporters like Clark who are only given 400 to 500 words to make his point in a paper that is turning into a modern version of Wheeler Dealer, or Jerry Springer type radio shows like Cunningham’s comedy act that wants to be taken seriously at times, but has long ago lost his credibility due to his progressive tendencies are being replaced by media like what people are finding here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, and syndicated programs like The Doc Thompson Show, or GBTV with Glenn Beck.
People don’t want or care about the opinion of a puppet, and when a reporter or radio host shows that they are simply mouth pieces to larger organizations, they lose any power or credibility they thought they had. The desire of management whether it be at Clear Channel, Gannett, or the established political order to maintain their mechanisms of influence are the cause of their own destruction. They may have the short term gain of ratings spikes with sensational stories like the one that involved me, but in the long term people will side with me. They will see the villains are the reporters and talk show hosts who represent the old guard, and that old guard is protecting society from a truth they have helped conceal.
As Peter Bronson told his story of The Enquirer ideocrity letting a reporter of his caliber leave in favor of the average boot licker was the nail that sealed their own coffin, and the decision was not done on behalf of quality, it was done to preserve a political leaning philosophy built on emotion instead of facts, and that philosophy cannot be maintained through hard reporting. WLW did much the same when they elected to preserve the radio tendencies of old by letting new talent like Doc Thompson leave to start his own syndicated show out of Detroit in a competing market. And The Enquirer’s desire to blow my blog out of the water making it seem scandalous and illegitimate as a competing news source backfired in a big way because they failed to realize they were playing by the old rules where I was playing by the new. And in the new, I am free to use the First Amendment to full effect. I do not have advertisers, managers with political view points, aging Marconi Winners fearful of younger Marconi Winners, or any political bureaucracy to hold me back like Michael Clark and other reporters who are unquestionably restrained. Their editors will only give Clark his 500 words because they have to save ad space for the car dealerships, which cheapens the entire news presentation. Adversely, here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom I can cover in as much detail the topics I want, and my talent is not restrained by any loyalty to corporate interest. At the projected rate of my readership, I will hit over a million viewers within the next year or two, because people value news in the style that I report it. Some of it is sensational, some of it is traditional, some of it is non political, some of it is pop culture, but the key is that I can decide if I want to cover it or not, and I am not confined to covering only education.
The success of Glenn Beck, and now Doc Thompson is that these news personalities do not allow their explorations of the truth limit them in just the realm of politics. Sometimes the source of the problems spill over into other aspects of society and using the old media rules are never explored. It used to be that a reporter like Michael Clark would use his ink by the barrel to focus only on the immediate issues of education since he’s an education reporter and not a sociology reporter, and not equipped by his editor to comment on such matters, even though some of the desire for a school levy is a sociological problem and not an economic one. Clark cannot explore that line of thought because The Enquirer will not allow it. So readers wanting to know more about what’s going on in the world turn to my 800 articles with over 1200 words each to learn the real story and that is what’s changing from the old way to the new.
As the newspapers decline more sites like mine are rising up and each have their own spin, and are directly competing with traditional newspapers in the Cincinnati area. All these sites have been created within the last two years and are a direct reaction to the news that “doesn’t” get reported.
An impressive list and as I think about it, most of them were inspired by the work that Doc and I did on 700 WLW, and Darryl Parks on Saturdays. Listening to us on the radio helped inspire some of them to get involved and do their own thing as a citizen journalist. It may have cost Doc his job but in the long run he is far better off now than he was when he worked as a second fiddle to Willie Cunningham who appeared to be protecting the “old guard.” My view of all this competition is the more the merrier, the world benefits when there is competition of ideas in a free marketplace. But when there is an attempt to eliminate competition, like what The Enquirer has attempted to do which was picked up by local radio, people can see through the act for what it is.
That is big trouble for entities like school systems controlled by powerful public unions who desire with all their heart and souls to keep the facts of their situation vague, and using Saul Alinsky methods of manipulation have learned how to frame an argument to the 500 words of a Michael Clark Enquirer article so that the truth never gets out, and it never gets discussed on the radio where talk show hosts looking for content to fill their three hour time slots look for new material. In this way the old guard was able to keep problems from being solved and prohibit a competition of ideas through methods such as the ones used against me by the Enquirer and 700 WLW as heard in the interview above. But for a little while, when Doc Thompson was employed at WLW, there was a good run of good material that helped start a new wave of journalism, that of the citizen journalist, where my material was sourced by WLW and the Enquirer until the heat became too great, yet everyone but the crooks benefited. And the window stayed open just long enough to evolve into a new direction which Peter Bronson spoke about as the media is changing before our eyes, and the old way may have barrels of ink, but the paper they put it on is worthless. Now, it is those who can produce 1000 to 3000 words in an hour who may lack knowledge of the rules of the game taught in journalism classes, but have the passion to write things that the rules wouldn’t otherwise allow under the old way.
Competition is good, it is the ultimate referee. If people decide they’d rather read a 1700 word article I write about school levies in Monroe or Lakota than the ass kissing diatribes of the typical Enquirer article emotionally pleading for more money by quoting a looting superintendent who threatens to cut off info to a reporter for not writing articles favorable to public education, then the people have decided, and the numbers on my end are good—very good. When the traditional reporter who looks for softball reporting by reading all their info from a press release given to them by public relations specialists working at a public school, and not doing any hard reporting discovers they are out of a job because they struggled all day to come up with a 500 word article when I can produce a 3000 word article like this one before they have their first cup of coffee in the morning, the fault is on them.
The lesson here is to never pick a fight with a person who can out-write, out-wit, out-maneuver, out-work, out-talk, out-think, and has the physical stamina of an entire news room. Not a good idea because the advocates of such prodding will surely find themselves swimming in their barrels of ink as the papers it was intended for lay unsold and useless in the press room.
Thanks Doc Thompson for the kind words. The Doctor will live on, as will Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom with my latest project, the Tail of the Dragon. As to those other characters, time is not on their side as the sand is almost out of the hourglass. All the ass kissing in the world won’t make the taste of shit they’ve been swallowing and dishing out for their entire careers worth it. And all the dollars in a retirement account or poolside margaritas won’t be strong enough to wash away the taste. My apoplectic utterances here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, especially in the wake of Michael Clark’s choice in The Enquirer, can produce more words by the hour than my competition on a wider range of topics that actually connect the dots, instead of avoiding them. So what follows now was a choice made from a foolish love of an ancient, and archaic bedfellow–old school politics in a society that is sick of it.
It was wonderful to see Peter Bronson, the former award-winning Cincinnati Enquirer editorial columnist, speak at a recent event because he represents a day when the newspaper was a trusted friend in a confusing twisted world. I used to love Peter’s editorial columns as thousands of others did, and upon his exit from The Enquirer the paper has taken a noticeable downward turn as his influence has faded and a new regime of political boot lickers and levy whores have taken his place, bringing down the quality of the paper to a slow dying entity.
The Enquirer as it is today is like looking at a patient in a hospice center. Everyone knows death is immanent; it is just a matter of time. A newspaper that used to set the pace and trend of Cincinnati now is being replaced by citizen journalists, and twitter gossip, because the reporters at the paper, and the management did not adjust to the changing world and embrace new forms of media.
As Peter explained, newspapers used to receive over 1/3 of their total revenue from classified ads and in this modern environment, many of those ads are now on Grieg’s List, Career Builder, and Monster.com. By the time an ad appears in the paper in this fast-moving world, the event is already over, and that is the way of the future. The result to newspapers like The Enquirer has been that they have to replace those classified ads with auto dealer ads which have given the paper a cheapened appearance. And to make matters worse for them, The Enquirer has pushed reporters like Bronson out the door because of his conservative views, and replaced him with liberal, “touchy,” “feely,” emotional types who are attempting to report the news with a liberal slant to a conservative town. That is not a recipe for success.
Clark and I had a growing tenuous relationship through the last Lakota levy in 2011 because of a scoop to a story I tried to give him, but he refused citing that I had posted it on my blog here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom first. In my mind I didn’t consider citizen journalism equal to professional journalism, so I considered the story a scoop for legitimate media. Clark let me know that my blog was very much competition to him, which I was surprised to hear him say. I promised him that the next big story I had to release would come to him before I posted it on my site, giving him pure exclusivity.
I always thought Michael Clark gave fair treatment to my side of the story even though he did the typical liberal slant which was to only mention my portion of an interview in the body of each article while the pro levy people seemed to always get the first and last word. I didn’t mind, because my comments were so strong, that no matter what the other side said, they couldn’t answer my three interview lines with eight of their own. So I made good on my promise to Michael even though many of my friends in the anti-levy circles were warning me that Clark was a snake that would stick me in the back eventually. I figured that if Clark did that to me, then I’d find a way to make it work to my advantage, but in the back of my mind, I didn’t think I’d ever see it happen.
With the No Lakota Levy group the plan for a long time was to get more aggressive if the school attempted a fourth attempt and when Lakota showed signs of doing just that, we turned up the heat, as promised. We decided to create a foundation called Yes to Lakota Kids to help with the sports fees that were extremely excessive with a $10,000 donation for the districts’ neediest kids. For my friends in No Lakota Levy they genuinely wanted to help heal the community after three contentious levy failures at Lakota. For me personally, I thought it was like dropping a spoon full of water in the ocean. Hundreds of kids were still being ripped off in the sports scam at Lakota charging over $550 per sport per child, so I wasn’t happy.
I told Michael what we were doing and he and I planned an exclusive that was mutually beneficial. I wanted the coverage to show that No Lakota Levy was not a group that hurt children, but wanted to help them, and Michael wanted a story that The Enquirer could exhibit on the front page. Some of the No Lakota Levy people who were close to people working for Lakota arranged that I would present a $10,000 check to a member of the athletic department at Lakota so I set up a press conference and all the media in town was invited. Channel 5 came out, Channel 19, and of course The Enquirer. The Pulse Journal was contacted but didn’t make the press conference, but did cover it in the following Thursday edition. I did coverage on 700 WLW, so it was a pretty big deal. However, Lakota did not send over an athletic director for me to give the check to, so we basically just let the media take a picture of the $10,000 check with no school representatives present.
I can only speculate on what the school was thinking, but based on their violent reaction to my press conference, it looked as though we hit them too close to where they live. They needed to be able to extort the children to the public otherwise they could never consider passing another levy, and now we were offering a solution to the school they didn’t want to see fixed. So they pulled off the gloves and somewhere in that process they managed to win Michael Clark over to writing a very harsh article about me to get me out of the levy fight. Lakota had enough, now they were fighting for their very survival.
I wondered why Michael had done it for the last 6 months–why he betrayed our relationship for the small price of being on the good side of the Lakota School System, for the easy sports stories and covering every time an administration official moves to a new job? My whip targets in my back yard have featured the name of Michael Clark on each of them and I have cut thousands since that day. Why had he turned against me so spectacularly? So blatantly?
Predictably Clark did me a favor he didn’t intend; he made me much more popular and killed the next Lakota Levy till at least 2013 because people saw through the media driven antics, and they smelled a rat. In the process he killed the good relationship we had which was a good source of school oriented stories for the short-term gain of a sensational story that he and his fellow reporters no doubt were high-fiving in the press room by the overwhelming negative reaction that spread across the city of Cincinnati on March 15th 2012 emitting from every radio in town my salacious blog comments about levy supporters. My numbers at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom jumped up from 400 to 500 daily hits to 500 to 800 since then, which is what I needed to get my message out to people. Since I couldn’t trust the legitimate media to cover the education issue in the detail it required, my blog site was the best chance at combating trouble in the future, so the sensational story brought more people to the truth. The attention The Enquire gave me helped spread my blog to the rest of the state to districts who were suffering under heavy taxation in degrees similar to Lakota. And Clark is now left to scamper for silly stories that will probably end up costing him his job as mundane rhetoric settles in the wake of the controversy.
Sad, because it didn’t have to be that way, but it is what it is. Such is the competitive world of news and the changing landscape of who delivers it. In this new world it is not those who play it safe, because the real risk is in collusive protection. Sometimes to find the truth you have to pull aggressively in all the wrong directions to discover the possibilities you never thought possible. And The Enquirer played it safe, and is suffering for it.
Right on queue Monroe Schools Superintendent Elizabeth Lolli has indicated that she will be resigning from her position after the levy failure in August ahead of a November attempt. She says that the levy failure has nothing to do with her decision to give up an annual salary of $116,000 so she can work as a consultant for Butler County Educational Services, but the pattern is all too reminiscent of the behavior of the school districts’ immediate neighbor Lakota.
Two months after the levy defeat at Lakota in November of 2010 Mike Taylor retired stepping out of the heat that was brewing as it was revealed that the cause of the tax increase was due to excessively high teacher salaries, and that the superintendent had not even made an effort to manage his costs. In a video Taylor filmed before the 2010 levy attempt Taylor declared that teachers did not make enough for their intense 7.5 hour day 9 months out of the year, and that he thought teachers should be paid more!
Well it is that type of mismanagement of tax payer resources that have caused school districts all over Ohio to effectively go bankrupt, including Monroe which is now in a state fiscal emergency. If a superintendent who makes six figures isn’t going to manage the costs of their employees, then they are failures. Mike was smart to jump off the ship at Lakota because the game had been exposed, and he knew it. So he did the smart thing and retired.
Lakota actually improved their performance over the next 6 months without a superintendent which proved that the superintendent positions are just token occupations designed to shield school boards from direct responsibility when things go wrong. The superintendent is simply a spokesman for the schools and are more comparable to a public relations consultant whose sole propose is to pass tax increases than a CEO who runs a major company. Lakota prior to another levy attempt in the fall of 2011 hired the quarter million dollar double dipping delegator, the former retiree from Sycamore Schools Karen Mantia. Since bringing her on to exclusively pass a school levy Lakota has spent well over $250,000 in compensation on Mantia, plus another $160,000 dollars on public relations in just over a year’s time. Nearly half a million dollars alone has been spent on creating a positive public image for a school that is supposed to be teaching children. But the obvious function of the education jobs are to create government jobs with tax payer dollars and the superintendent is the guardian of that creation, not the regulation of cost. Superintendents are sold to the community as CEO’s, but their actual function is simply public relations. Mantia did nothing after Lakota’s levy failures to present to the education union a 5% reduction in their inflated wages and benefits in order to balance their budget; instead she participated in cutting electives, increasing sports fees, and aggressive busing reductions. The purpose of these measures were not to cut costs, but to punish the public for not passing a levy. (How do I know that? Because I am personal friends with several former and current school board members who have given me their notes from Levy University taught at their yearly OSBA conference in Columbus. Bet you won’t read about that in your local newspaper.)
The same type of extortion is going on at Monroe. Voters just turned down a vote in August yet the school board put another attempt on the ballot for November. Their intention is to keep putting a tax increase on the ballot until the public gives up resisting it. This is radical politics in the extreme and is a popular union tactic that is responsible for how the wages through collective bargaining drove up the labor costs of Lakota, and Monroe in the first place to average salaries of over $60K per year. Collective bargaining is the villain, since it is the “collective” body of the school employees who make demands through threats of strike to get short work days, extremely low health insurance costs, and 2% to 3% increases for all their years of employment. Teachers all through the previous decade would threaten to strike at the slightest mention of health insurance increases sending a strong message to school boards to not even attempt to regulate the wages, so nobody did.
The result is out-of-control budgets in all of Ohio’s 614 school districts and the only way they have to balance their budget is to increase taxes. This is the fault of the unions, and they are hiding in the backgrounds leaving school superintendents to take the bullets for them, people like Elizabeth Lolli who was paid six figures to put up and shut up. Monroe hopes that they can get a levy passed by parting ways with Lolli and blaming all their financial problems on their previous treasurer whom they are currently suing. But the fault is actually on all of them who constantly yielded to the union demands avoiding conflict like truck drivers avoid driving on an icy road.
What nobody has figured out is that these levy failures are the public’s way of striking back at the unions for their constant terrorism invoked through fear of work stoppages over the years, driving up their labor costs. When the public votes down a levy, they are saying, “NO” to the cost increases imposed on a school district, which is their way of managing the costs. The school board has an obligation to act on that vote, not cheerlead on behalf of the union who caused the problem in the first place. A “NO” vote is looked upon by the radical tax grabbers as a greedy, child hating enterprise, but where were the cares for the children when the teachers threatened to walk off the job because their health care was going up by .5%, or they demanded at 3% increase in pay instead of a 2%. Teachers who participated in those strikes are hypocrites and they are the cause of the current financial instability. When the public says “NO” to a school levy, they mean it. And when a public official at the local school board, or the state decide they are going to be arrogant enough to put another levy on the ballot the day after the public voted the tax increase down, they are proclaiming to the world that they are too spineless, and arrogant to listen to the public mandate, and that they will ram the issue down the throat of the public until the “NO” votes becomes a “YES” vote. And every person who participates in that process should lose their job.
Elizabeth Lolli knows she’s caught between a rock and a hard place just as Lakota’s Mike Taylor knew it, and the best thing to do these days is to take the money and run, because the money tree isn’t shaking any more. Tax payers have realized that they are being scammed and they don’t like it. And the unions wouldn’t dare attempt to threaten a strike now that people are on to their game, so the “NO” votes are getting bolder—finally. People for the first time in over a decade are openly voicing their opinion about these money scams coming from public education and they resent having their children wrapped up in the ordeal. There is a real and growing anger at the entire public education funding process. I’m so fed up with it that I think all parents should home school their children, because I don’t like the product public schools are producing. It certainly isn’t worth the massive amounts of money we throw at it. For the $2000 to $3000 I spend per year on property taxes, I’d rather save the money and take my family to Disney World than provide a baby sitting service for the young busy parents who live in my school district and more people are beginning to feel as I do, which is very bad for the public school unions—who I don’t think have a legal right to even exist.
So it’s no mystery that Monroe’s Superintendent Lolli is stepping down, because the writing is on the wall. She knows it and the school board knows it, and the union knows the mud is on their hands. If I were a superintendent I wouldn’t want to be in the situation either, even for a six figure income to simply be a public relations mouthpiece. Because before too long, the guilt overtakes the comfort that the money brings, and the heat in the kitchen is just too great. And the heat is very hot in the kitchen right now, and it’s about to get a lot hotter. Believe me, I know first hand. The only adults in the room on this whole education issue are the people who vote “NO” and deep down inside all the school board members know it, and the superintendents do as well. Because logic is on the side of the people who are declaring that the spending increases on salaries and benefits in public education have to be pulled down to reality, but the unions won’t budge leaving the school superintendent to be squashed in the middle. Superintendents like Lakota’s Mantia puts herself in that difficult situation willingly accepting she couldn’t get a job anywhere else as easy as a school superintendent and make so much money. So the public pressure is worth the financial return for her. But for people like Lolli, and Taylor, who can see where this funding road is going, they have logically and wisely decided to remove themselves from the debate which will be a loss for them no matter which way a vote in November dictates.
My anger at politics is not ideological. I received a nasty note the other day from a person calling me “Romney’s Dog” as in attack dog thinking that I am on the payroll of the Republican Party and that I do what I do for profit—to make money off the political machine. In reality the only money I make is from an occasional book sale. I do not take money from any politician and I never will, because I despise politics. I despise it because the egos and looting of politicians are preventing the world I want to live in which is a free society complete with cures for cancer, flying cars and an education system that produces young people like this:
When I saw that clip I actually wondered why people were so shocked at the little girl, named Olivia who I think should be considered normal. The first thing that comes to mind when watching the 7-year-old girl recite a poem in front of millions of people is that it’s quite impressive, but to do it with a snake wrapped around her neck is extraordinary—but why? The reason is rather sad, because we have a political system worldwide that keeps it’s foot on the neck of individual exceptionalism. To witness one little girl who is exceptional and made it through the gauntlet of mediocrity that normal society lives under is a shock—and it shouldn’t be.
Philosophies of collectivism which plagues the world do not produce individuals like Olivia–good supportive families do. Without a doubt the bright-eyed seven-year old has a parent, or parents who have encouraged her that she can do anything, and public education has not yet had the chance to stamp out the hopes and dreams of a fully functioning brain that comes in such a pure form as in young children.
What disgusts me most is to see young people and full-grown adults walking about half-asleep mired by limitations given to them by the theories of collectivism, the result of years and years of forcing the most unusual to be less so in order to preserve the feelings of those who are not so fortunate. At the Olympics it is good to see that the world does unite under a common understanding that each country put forth their best athletes in a hope to win the competitions they participate in. That in essence is capitalism, and America produced so many athletes in so many different categories because capitalism is superior to every other economic system, because it is a luxury to come from a culture that can afford to allow athletes to train exclusively in their category without being economically productive in other ways.
China outnumbers the American population by 4 to 1 yet they were not able to produce more medals than the United States in spite of grilling their youth from the time of a fetus into a super athlete produced under communism. America did better and it is because independence and freedom are the foundations of our nation, and not subservient sacrifice to a country. The country benefits due to the desire, greed, and individual achievement of the athletes it put forward.
As I thought of the winter Olympics being played in Russia soon, then the next summer games in Rio, both countries are experimenting with various degrees of socialism and will not be able to produce athletes at the levels of competition their countries could otherwise achieve if they did not have a collectivist oriented society. Even though it is fashionable to embrace collectivism, collectivism does not produce exceptionalism.
Usain Bolt from Jamaica was astonishing in the Track and Field categories and without question the Socialist International Party that is currently in power in Jamaica with slightly over half the voting population will attempt to attach themselves to the back of Bolt’s individual effort as a collective salvation enterprise. But Bolt is an exceptional individual with charismatic charm that has evolved beyond the reach of politics in the rather loose environment of Jamaica that is very close to the type of government currently at play in the United Kingdom. Without the socialism, Jamaica may be able to produce more Usain Bolts and that is the tragedy of intrusive collectivist societies. Exceptional people like Usain Bolt and 7-year-old Olivia reciting poems with her pet snake are such strong personalities that no political system can stamp out their flame of brilliance. But I can’t help but think how many others are squashed who are equally exceptional but lack the charisma to develop their talent, especially in communist and socialist countries.
What I want for the world is for all countries to be more like America. Tourist areas like Cancun, Mexico, the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and the entire city of Hong Kong have allowed western capitalism to function much to the success of those countries, and I would like to see more of that—which would improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people instantly. I would rather see the Japanese people wearing cowboy hats in downtown Tokyo than young people dressing up like samurai warriors in a Seattle Starbucks. The cowboy hat should be the fashion trend in Moscow, rather than that damn fur thing Russians have made popular. In essence, it’s not that I want America to isolate itself from the rest of the world. I want America to impose itself on tyrants, dictators, and socialists who hold back their collective societies with an ideology that is incorrect, and individually destructive. In short, I want the world to be more like America, and not as the U.N. proposes, to adopt the schemes of Socialist International.
Individualism is the key to success for the entire world. It is the exceptional that all societies should strive for, and the obstacles should be cleared to allow the exceptional to flourish. I would like to see a world where 7-year-olds like Olivia were common, not unusual, and the bar for all of the human race be raised. Because the key to our survival is not in the dumbing down our youth to those with the least advantage in our society, it is not compassionate to destroy society so that those less fortunate do not feel bad. Compassion is in helping those who fall behind with encouragement, but not belittlement because they are not as brave as Olivia, or as fast as Bolt, or can conduct music like John Williams. Societies all over the world are richer when they embrace the best among them with open arms and not the extra burden of political looting as President Obama did the moment Michael Phelps landed back in The United States. American Presidents believe that by sucking up to athletes like Phelps, actors like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Superbowl winners it will make them publicly appear to have more exceptionalism than they actually have which is political theft. The politician in The White House is not royalty and is in fact a public servant, no different from the kid who cuts our grass, or waits on us at a restaurant. But by rubbing shoulders with achievers in the world, people like Obama can appear to be more than they are by riding on the coat tails of those who are truly great. And it is that tendency which brings poverty and misery to the entire world, which is wonderfully absent in events like the London Olympics where the politicians sit in the stands and do nothing but watch.
And as a side note, if it were my job to pick the next singer for a future James Bond film, I’d give the job to Jessie J based on her performance of that classic Queen song, “We Will Rock You.” She nailed it hands down, and should be utilized among the great female musical performers in the Bond film archives. The confidence she displayed during that Olympic performance was—exceptional! However, the world I want is one where such performances are normal.
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