Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 220

Deregulate Electric Power with Thorium: California goes back in time as the fires rage on

The ultimate failure of a liberalized, toxic government is the exhibit A of California where the regulation mandated power company PG&E has been shutting off service to millions of customers so to avoid their aging infrastructure from causing wildfires, which have started anyway. So not only did people have to go without power to run their air conditioners, traffic lights, and basic needs such as gas pumps, but it was to no effect because wildfires started regardless. It was only PG&E who could this time say, “It wasn’t us” because we shut off the power and couldn’t be blamed. During the last round of wildfires, lots of lawsuits went toward the power company so this time the response to the danger was to just shut off power. The whole event is just as I say about all liberal causes including environmental issues, it’s a climb backwards in time to unlearn what mankind has advanced. These are not the solutions of a first world superpower but rather a back-water village disconnected from the future.

The solutions are obvious, energy should be deregulated as I said many years ago. There are options such as the mini thorium power stations that every home in America could have like a current air conditioning unit that would take care of all the power needs of that household independent of the power company. (CLICK HERE TO REVIEW MY PREVIOUS ARTICLES ON THIS TECHNOLOGY). Additionally, wildfires are a choice, especially in California. Drought conditions are well known, and the events that cause them. Otherwise PG&E wouldn’t know enough to even think to shut off power during this time of year to their customers out of “safety.” We have complicated sewage systems that traverse the state, the same kind of infrastructure could run water from the ocean to areas where dry conditions cause wildfires and the ground would be too wet for wildfire breakouts. A first world solution is to have a giant sprinkler system to guard against the conditions in the same way we remove our sewage. Those are ways forward and well within reach of today’s technology. And when people complain about the expense, well nothing is more expensive than doing nothing as the world ticks on.

But the key is in reducing government interference and forcing a monopoly like PG&E from running electric power distribution. Power deregulation would be as transformative as it was with the phone monopolies prior to the explosion of the cell phone. Remember those days where you had one phone company running everything and they could charge you

extraordinary fees for calling long distance—like to the next county over. Today we make calls all over the world for pennies on the dollar, its almost not even a thought and that is because of internet capability giving us communication independence. The same kind of deregulation would bring forth more options for power. Not having power is a choice and as much as the current progressive governor of California claims he’s against what PG&E is doing, his kind of government supported monopoly has given them the keys to this type of terrorism, and a bus back to the past when power was not an option to homes and businesses. The next step of course will not be to cut power off for wildfire prevention, but to save the planet, or to cut power to the districts of political opponents. The writing is on the wall for all to clearly see now that PG&E has done the deed.

PG&Es poor management was empowered by the government regulatory committees who allowed that power company to be the single source of power distribution in that part of the United States, and such a thing knowing the kind of pent up options that are out there is ludicrous. In this day and age, there is no reason to ever only have one source of power. Ultimately the problem is a liberal one because they don’t want people to have those kinds of independent options, because they want to micromanage the power options people have because that kind of control is part of their political platform. They never plan that one of these monopoly power companies like PG&E will do the unthinkable and just shut off power. It is expected that after a major storm when powerlines are down and service is cut off, that the government backed monopoly of a power company will head out into the heavy winds and rain to restore power to everyone. There is never a plan for the day where that lazy power company says, “to hell with this. We’re tired of getting blamed. Fix it yourself.”

The action that needs to happen after this PG&E incident is deregulation at the federal level to allow states to make decisions on their electric consumption and supply. It would not take long for mini thorium generators from becoming as common as iPhones. It would solve a lot of problems. It would be harder for government to control the situation, but as pointed out, the California problem is clearly a debacle of intent. Too much control by the government and the power companies has created a situation where mismanagement has led people to not having power taking them to a time before the 20th century which is a major step backwards. And it shouldn’t be tolerated. Energy is the key to further human progress and without question many liberals don’t want to see that expansion of imprint across the world, so they will be against unleashing any such future technology. They like the gifts of technology, their iPhones, iWatches and many other wonderful devices, but only so long as they can pull the plug on them literally to exert control over the masses at will. They don’t want people to discover that hundreds of millions of homes could be supported in North America, and the world for that matter without government mandated monopolies in the form of power companies.

The California power problems, and wildfires are ultimately the problem of government created to maintain control over those people, not to make them safe. The goal was in compliance, and to let the rest of the world see that even as a first world, America has its problems. Yet the problem is completely artificial. Think of all the voters in California who would right now vote for a Republican who gave them deregulation of power and allowed for an end to this madness. I understand the complications of the union vote coming out of the power companies, but that is a minority voting bloc compared to the people who are suffering right now and could be won over very easily with some options. No company of any size should have the power to literally distribute energy to anybody. And to hide that desire for power behind “safety.” In this case it was to no point, only to throw a fit from the last round of lawsuits which the company responded poorly to. This year they said, “oh yeah, we’ll show you, you can’t get your power from anybody but us, so take that!” The solution is to tell them, “well, yes we can get our power from here, here, here, and there. We don’t need you.”

Rich Hoffman

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To Hell With the Chinese Government: There is a lot more money to make once the communist regime is removed

This year feels like a greatest hit of “I told you so” euphemisms and that is certainly true of the situation in China. I suppose I’m a little surprised that people are just now discovering that China has been a communist country and is very much an oppressive regime. They have used corporate extortion with companies like Disney, Nike and Apple to hide their treachery behind capitalist goods sold back to the United States with a nice big smiley face. But it was never an illusion to me that they were a murderous blot of communists that needed to be destroyed at some point in time for their many injustices. My position on China has been always the same because I do know history and it has been appalling to me that so many American companies wanted to do business with China and actually bend to their will for a shot at their population as expansion of an emerging market.

As much as I support corporations, usually by the time they mature, they are not much different from socialist dictatorships ran by a board of directors as opposed to the innovative techniques that made them great in the first place. At the point of a company like Nike, The NBA or the movie industry looking for more and more people to consume their products its not a big deal to cave into the demands of China’s communism because as corporations, they are already thinking the same way within their organizations. Its all about brand protection, Nike has their image to protect that they’ve built over a long period of time. China also has an image to protect, so its not hard to see why they are such good bedfellows.

The good thing is that through the trade war, President Trump has forced the economy of China into a dire situation and they have lost their ability to project superiority as a culture. Taking away their buffer cash reserves has exposed China to the kind of dirty dealers they have always been, and its left this uncomfortable relationship between all these massive American corporations exposed. Seeing their chance for freedom under the protection of the Trump administration, the people of Hong Kong are making their move to stand up for themselves and it is really pissing off China to see all those American flags and protestors uttering American sentiments wherever they can.

China in response is trying to close off their culture to western ideas, which blows the plans of the Hollywood industry out of the water as they count on China to cover their bottom line these days. Naturally China is blaming America for a lot of the riots in Hong Kong and they are angry that they are losing their grip on the world both as a brand and financially. So, they are putting up their walls and trying to disconnect from the world as a reaction, which is really too late to attempt to do now. China culturally has oppressed their people so a stand off is ripe. And now, due to Trump, they don’t have the financial resources to deal with it. They have no choice but to make a deal with President Trump to make the pain go away. And that’s where things are today.

I learned what I needed to know about China from the Joseph Campbell book Oriental Mythology as it reported page by page how the communist government took over in 1949 and inflicted upon the good people there tyranny beyond belief. We all have a lot to be enraged about when political leftists and corporations want to turn a blind eye to the terror that is the Chinese government and has been for many years now in favor of making a few bucks. And they think they have a right to then lecture us on the evils of capitalism. Its all been a not so funny joke.

Yet our education system and our own government in general has looked to communist China as the way to do everything, which is appalling. We could have over a billion people if we wanted to, but the same leftists who support China with a desire to market products to their billions of people are the same who support abortion and the mass killing of millions and millions of potential Americans. The same leftists who preach to America about tolerance for Muslims and other aggressive religions is the same one that promotes China where religion is illegal unless you are worshiping the government. The political left has been pointing us all toward China for most of a half century and telling us that this was what was coming to us and we better get used to it.

And what did we ever get out of China? Nothing really, our trade relationship allowed them to loot off us and gain what they could as a tyrannical regime of communist advocates. The way to weaken them was to prevent them from cheating off our homework and let them fail on their own without propping them up. The only way Chinese communism was going to work was if they could loot off the United States corporations to validate their climb to power. All they had to bargain with was their billion people. Other than that, they had nothing. Yet the political left went all in on that gamble and now it is lost, crumbling before their eyes.

Yet what’s so astonishing is that so many people don’t know that China was and still is such a hostile power, that their communism was so evil, and vile. And that the Trump administration has exposed all this treachery without firing a single shot in aggression. Because honestly, its not bullets that make war work these days, its economics. In a lot of ways, it always was. The governments of the world wanted socialism, so they used China as a way to advance it around the world, they were propped up to succeed and corporate America forgot about the value of a strong nation and bought into the global brand. Why market to just Americans when the whole world was open to them, so it was an attractive proposition.

However, what everyone missed was that those Chinese markets do not have to be limited to us, as they have been. Think how much money could be made by these same corporations if you topple the communist government and free those markets in China along with Hong Kong? Most of those billion people who live in China are poor. Dirt poor. They don’t have money to go see NBA games, to see movies, or buy Nike tennis shoes. But once the communist government falls and the doors of capitalism open, there will be a lot more affluent people in China who could. So pandering to the communists was not the smart thing to do. Getting rid of them is, and with Trump’s tough stance with tariffs, it is exposing that communist government complete with all their weaknesses. They are going to have to change, they have no choice. Then, and only then will markets really be open to American companies. Pandering to evil will not help the bottom line, it just gives the illusion for a short-term gain at long term losses. Those losses are now being felt as they damn well should.

Rich Hoffman

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The Fighter Donald J. Trump: He’s what I want as a president, impeachment is not an option

When people asked me why I was supporting Donald Trump way back even during the early days of the Tea Party, when he was just flirting with being president, it was because I knew two things had to happen in the Executive Branch, which would then cascade down into our overall government as a change agent, first whoever would run would need to be self-made and wealthy, to resist all the temptations that Washington dangles in front of people. The second is that they’d have to thrive off the chaos that was associated with Beltway culture and be essentially an overman, beyond the reach of peer pressure and the worm tongues that are associated with the Beltway culture of consultants which are as common as raindrops in a hurricane. My thoughts on this go way back into even the Reagan days of the 80s and have shown up in both of my published novels, The Symposium of Justice and The Tail of the Dragon. I knew it had to happen and Donald Trump seemed perfect for the job, so I supported him very early in the process for all the reasons we are now seeing. Very few people in the world could stand up to the bullies of Washington the way he is and enjoy it. We elected the right guy and I am very happy about it.

When you know you need to make a change, because things were not obviously working, then a change agent is essential. In all future elections due to this Trump presidency, more battle-hardened executives should find their way into school boards, trustee positions, and congressional seats which will change the nature of our political system for many years. As it has been it was largely washed up lawyers who couldn’t hack it in the private sector who ran to public office to pad their resume and perform law without the burdens of true competitive markets. And that is what’s wrong with most of what we have in politics, we elected the wrong people for all the wrong reasons because essentially, we didn’t have a choice. People like Donald Trump never really made it to a ballot, and if they did, they didn’t want the public pressure that usually comes with it. Trump did, in fact he thrived on it. And now that Democrats are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him with this impeachment attempt, I trust that he will throw back at them an entire house. I will back him on that 100% because they deserve everything he can and will throw back at them to win. Yes, winning means everything, even if it destroys an entire political party, which I suspect may very well happen.

Impeached for what, having created the greatest Economy in the history of our Country, building our strongest ever Military, Cutting Taxes too much? https://t.co/LWxfEcRmj4

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2019

This is why I picked supporting Ross Perot over George Bush way back in 1992. Perot was a self-made person and had all the battle-hardened sensibility that business tends to carve out in people. But he didn’t care much for the chaos and fights that were required. He had a lot of fight in him, but he didn’t thrive off it like Trump does. Ultimately, that’s why he only acquired 19% of the vote and we ended up with Bill Clinton. Even then what we ended up with was better as a change agency because it was starting to root out the soft Republicans from those who were truly conservative, so in that way, party politics was on a track to what ended up being the Tea Party. It took a few decades and people thinking about these things long and hard, but we ended up better than before. Not even the media sees that change because they have been in a bubble for that entire time marching to some viewpoints that started way back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. For example, due to Ross Perot shaking things up in the Republican Party we ended up with the Newt Gingrich Contract with America, which everyone generally thinks started moving things in the right direction. Gingrich was and still is considered a rough and tumble conservative by the standards of the Beltway culture. But to a lot of people he’s not nearly strong enough. A few years ago my wife had a chance to meet Gingrich and shake his hand. She embarrassingly refused because he wasn’t nearly conservative enough for her and she walked away leaving him uncomfortably standing there with his hand out with no reception. That’s how it really is in politics.

“I don’t think it’s a Whistleblower at all. I think this is an anonymous source for the Democratic Staff in the House of Representatives. This is an insult to real Whistleblowers. Actual Whistleblowers go on to have their whole lives upended.” John Kiriakou @TuckerCarlson

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2019

Many of Trump’s supporters are like my wife. I can wine and dine with people and find common ground with anybody in spite of my strong opinions on this literary exchange. I could make a friend out of the devil and have him wash my car while he was at it, so naturally I have no problem shaking the hand of people like Newt Gingrich. I’ll take an alley who wants to play tough in the Republican Party even if he does disappoint me from time to time. But not my wife. She’s either there or not and many people who pull the trigger for Trump at the ballot box are similar. They don’t care for politics, they want someone who will fight, and they don’t answer their cell phones for polls. If they don’t know the caller, they let it go to voice mail making modern polling nearly impossible. And now with a few years under his belt, Trump’s change agency is much more mathematically persuasive than anything Ross Perot did. The effects will be felt for years which is why Democrats are freaking out now. As bad as impeachment might end up looking for them, they simply have no other means of beating Trump in an election. They see the crowds, they know William Barr is sniffing around conspiracies they are in the middle of, and Trump has held his cards until this election year anticipating their moves. They are in deep doo doo, and I’m happy for Trump to go scorched earth on Washington D.C. which I suspect he is about to do because that’s his nature. Do anything to win, and he will which is just the kind of guy I voted for.

So pathetic to see Sleepy Joe Biden, who with his son, Hunter, and to the detriment of the American Taxpayer, has ripped off at least two countries for millions of dollars, calling for my impeachment – and I did nothing wrong. Joe’s Failing Campaign gave him no other choice!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2019

Even in 2012 when I wrote Tail of the Dragon reviewers and blurb contributors were pessimistic at my thoughts about government. But they can now see that it was every bit as bad and scandalous as I proposed. The coordination of the so-called “deep state” is scary. The way the media and the FBI have had their relationship exposed has been truly terrifying as its been unleashed to the public and that is just the tip of the iceberg. I always knew it was ugly and whoever was going to clean it up was going to have to do it from the Executive Branch and would need to be financially comfortable by other means besides what government provided, so that they were free of the levers of power that have corrupted Washington D.C. from its inception. President Trump is exactly what we needed when we needed it, and I am behind him completely hell or high water. We need him as a change agent, which is more important than any other factor if America is to survive for the next few hundred years. It will take the Democrats longer than that to pull themselves together after this upcoming election year, which is the best news of all.

Rich Hoffman

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The Anti-Trump Joker Film: Todd Phillips activism will be rewarded by a Hollywood culture that wants terriorism

Now that I’ve seen the Joker there is no question in my mind that Todd Phillips made the film as an anti-Trump message and his anti-capitalist message will be rewarded with Oscar nominations, and awards. I’ve said it before in regard to how Hollywood operates and the kind of social activism they sponsor. Its not so much the box office that many actors regard as their highest honor, it’s the path to get an Academy Award. Most actors don’t think they can ever be taken seriously until they’ve won one and it is that yearning which keeps Hollywood marching along the lines of social activism. So when we talk about mass shootings and generally bad behavior that we see in society, yet no responsibility is ever placed at the feet of those who are actually responsible, the path to get there is just in the types of projects that brought Joker to be. For women in Hollywood, the message to them is that they must present themselves on screen in the nude, and it is then and only then that they will be taken seriously. For the men, they must show themselves to be disasters of imperfection and flawed to the core of their being. And that is why actors who have played the Joker in the various Batman movies have done so well with awards and this latest one starring Joaquin Phoenix is no different. It would not be surprising to see him get a best actor award for his performance in the Joker. He did a fabulous job, no question about that. But why we consider it fabulous is where the disagreements are and how actual terrorism is usually at the heart of that decision-making process.

Most of the actors in Hollywood have received awards of some kind for dressing as a terrorist clown and updating the mythology. Actors like Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and even Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill have all done praised work of the super villain of the DC Comic universe and that attention does not go unnoticed. The message clearly to actors is, especially white, male, actors is that if you want to get attention, you must do acting not in the moral stewardship of John Wayne, for which Hollywood was built, but on the deranged lunatic, like the Joker villain. This trend goes a long way in Hollywood including in one of the best westerns I think has ever been made in Once Upon a Time in the West. In that film, it was a big deal that Henry Fonda, the perpetual blue-eyed good guy, was the crazy killer and ultimate villain. Hollywood loves and always has loved, to make good people into bad people, even though box office numbers favor good guys who stay good guys. In this world of the “woke” it is the villains that are getting all the attention because to be entirely honest, the people who make movies in that culture want more people like themselves in the world so they don’t feel so lonely.

The giveaway to the Todd Phillips Joker is that it wasn’t the Joaquin Phoenix character who killed the future Batman’s parents, it was an inspired mob. And in the grandiose way that the film ended there was a quiet message to the masses to go out and conduct themselves as the Joker had because the world from the liberal eyes of Phillips is so unjust. But he’s not alone, most everyone working in Hollywood feels the same way, and so does the media. They would never admit in the light of day, but at the bars of Glendale under the warm night air with their arms around their dates, they will say quite openly, “F**k those Trump voters out there over the mountains, in that 2000 miles beyond to the shores of the Atlantic. Let’s kill them all the way good ol’ Charlie did. We won’t have the blood on our hands, and we’ll hide the terrorism behind free speech and destroy them all with their own Constitution since they love their guns so much.” But in their media events, on the show with Ellan, or The View, they will be called artists of great consequence and be told how compassionate they are for the plights of the poor and downtrodden. And after the next mass shooting, which they had inspired by their “artistic” work, they will be quoted for their positions on more gun control managed by the same government that caused all the tension.

It’s the same lunatics that have called Robert Mapplethorpe’s work “art,” while praising The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a true representation of the human soul. Most working in Hollywood are not good at anything else in life so they hate the good family man, the business leader, the titan of industry. Most of the rejects who fled to Hollywood the way gold panners headed west during the Gold Rush was to make money any way possible. They will prostitute themselves in any fashion to get a shot and their moral ethics is part of what ends up getting hired by studios built by the same types of people. People who left their families to make a lot of money in show business, to be whatever someone told them to be so they could get an invite to the nice parties of Los Angeles social life. It isn’t the clean-cut moralist who gets their script bought by a studio ran by people who would rather put hundred-dollar bills in the G-strings of strippers at gentlemen clubs than hang out around the house raising their children. Most producers want writers and actors around them who think the way they do, and much like the Joker played by Joaquin Phoenix they are lonely and would love more company. So they make movies to recruit more people to think the way they do and if it leads to killing people along the way, there is a secret little smile that they have in the back of their minds every time it happens, because for them its revenge.

To provoke that activism the Academy of Arts and Sciences gives out their Academy Awards to social activists and actors who help them sell degeneration to the masses, ultimately so that they don’t have to be alone in life. They truly do want a world like the end of the Joker where Antifa types are running around terrorizing those who want to hold onto that traditional idea of America. They of course don’t say they want to kill anybody, but look at the silence given to Antifa when they physically beat up Trump supporters just for wearing a red Make America Great Again hat in public. Where did that antagonism come from, that spark for violence? It came from Hollywood and its products, in attitudes evoked from the Academy of Arts and Sciences and from filmmakers like Todd Phillips.

Like Charlie Manson they don’t do the killings directly. But they inspire them and while Phillips was cutting together this Joker movie, you can almost hear his voice calling out for people other than him to go out into Trump country and do the work of the Joker. Recently Mark Hamill, the nice guy Luke from the Star Wars series but occasional Joker in the animated series put out a really ugly Tweet toward Ivanka Trump for letting her kid dress up as a stormtrooper. His hatred for the Trumps was truly remarkable and was insight into how these Hollywood types really think of the people who voted for Trump in the last election, and who continue to want an America built by the Constitution. Actors who play characters like the Joker get praise because Hollywood wants more of that type of character because deep down inside they want the school shootings, they want the violence in Chicago, and they want the destroyed families for all the same reasons that Arthur Fleck did. Because they are hurting and they don’t know how to articulate it, so they want to lash out at those they think have victimized them. And in Hollywood, that behavior gets awarded, so they get a lot more of it.

Rich Hoffman

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Mike DeWine Caving into the Real Life Jokers: When evil gets their way on gun control and the good cower with appeasment

One of the reasons I continue to be angry at the Joker film is precisely due to the way the media and even Governor DeWine has attempted to advance gun control in the state of Ohio. For all the artistic sentiments of the Joker, and why I have been talking about it so much is because it clearly tells the story of how liberals view the world. In it, Arthur Fleck is given a gun by a co-worker for free, because this friend supposedly wants to keep the professional clown from getting beat up so much. The gun then ends of getting Fleck fired from his job when it accidently falls out of his outfit while performing for cancer kids. Then while being beat up on the subway by rich, Wall Street types, Fleck uses the gun, because he has it, to kill the three attackers which puts him on a path of psychopathic violence and murder. The short story is that it was access to the gun that made the Joker, and very little else. Then of course when such things happen in real life we expect pink Republicans like Mike DeWine to side with liberal mayors like the gun control advocate that claimed fame after the recent mass shooting there to push for more gun control—and the media applauds as all that activism takes place right under our noses and is sold to the stupid with films like the Joker.

I expect the Ohio House to destroy Mike DeWine’s “Strong Ohio” gun control measures which go way to far in expanding background checks and trying to create a path to removing guns from people who may be harmful to themselves or others as defined by friends and neighbors. With the amount of gun shots and bullwhip cracks that come from my house on a daily basis, DeWine’s gun control bill could mean trouble for me from nosy neighbors and family members who may be “concerned” about my sanity—because I believe strongly in the Second Amendment and like to shoot guns a lot. The spirit of the law does nothing to cause mass shootings because the real issues that inspire such terrible conditions were actually displayed quite brilliantly within the story of the Joker—an activist Hollywood culture that takes no responsibility for the violence of their films and hides their political activism behind “art.”

There was a scene in the Joker at the end where a murderous Arthur Fleck told Robert De Niro’s late-night comedy commentator that his murders weren’t political, that he was just doing them for the enjoyment of it. Yet moments later the Joker was being placed on the hood of a police car after he shot De Niro point blank in the face on live television making him a hero of the downtrodden. A riot broke out and it was the Joker who was its leader through his murderous actions, and it was clear that the message of the film to all the troubled souls out there like the real life Arthur Fleck might follow in his footsteps stepping from fiction to reality. Such a story could certainly be told of the extreme gun hating mass shooter in Dayton Connor Betts.

I certainly let everyone I know close to the Governor, which is quite a few people by the way, know how I felt about the intentions of his red flag law proposal and to his credit he did back off. Not just because what I said on Monday October 8, 2019, but thousands of people like me who enjoy shooting and make guns a fundamental part of our American lifestyle based on good legal necessity. But it wasn’t enough for USA Today, The Dayton Daily news or The very liberal Cincinnati Enquirer, the headlines against the governor was that he wimped out and didn’t go full “red flag” but instead proposed a “pink slip” system which places mentally ill Ohioans in hospitals for up to 72 hours. Well, why would we do that, especially if we’ve seen the Joker.

The core of the problem is in how we define mental illness, which I would seriously indicate could involve every single person who calls themselves a Democrat. Then of course if Democrats were in power, they would call every single Republican insane. The definition of such a thing largely then becomes defined by perception and it is a means to taking guns from citizens, then it becomes very dangerous. The trouble with everything that Mike DeWine proposed is that it is anti-Republican and it hurts me to say it, but he should have never even put his name next to a proposal of Democrat radicalism. Any gun control measure is a suggestion for more government expansion, more money for mental illness, more hospital care, more cops, more monitoring agents when the ones we have now don’t do enough as it is. It doesn’t deal with the real problem which is liberalization as defined in the movie Joker.

When liberals empower others to blame their issues on society, or “fairness” in general, the are creating a path to action for the next mass shooter. By studying all the recent mass shooters, we can see that most of them were outright Democrats, or just plain anarchists. Most of them abused drugs and came from homes without a father. Clearly those are the kinds of things that we should be thinking about, but we aren’t instead the violence is provoked by the left, especially in movies and political positions shown in the Joker, and it is they who advocate for the gun control to fulfill their aims of eradicating the American Constitution into a more United Nations friendly document. The political left is completely invested in this topic and it shows in their products. To see the level of hatred that Hollywood and the mainstream media in general has for gun ownership in America just go see the Joker. People might say that the messages are subtle, but to me they are as obvious as Chevy Chase’s Christmas lights on his house in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. The Joker movie was an outlandish example of liberal viewpoints against guns and how to manage mental health and was an open call to send other psychotic dissidents into the streets to do as Connor Betts did, and that is to kill people with guns so that governors like DeWine would cave in against their base and create laws liberals want.

Honestly, I’m tired of all those losers trying to step into my life and to change it with feelings of guilt, shame and the subtle threat of violence. Movies like the Joker and the countless hours of victimization programing we see on CNN, NBC, ABC and many others cause these problems. While seeing the Joker I noticed another Harley Quinn movie was coming out, which is the Joker’s girlfriend, and Disney is doing Maleficent 2. Hollywood continues to try to make the bad guys good and with it they give truly disturbed people an excuse to snap and go on mass killing sprees, then when it happens, they don’t apologize and ask for forgiveness. Instead, they take their money to some tropical island and demand for more gun control where losers like Mike DeWine get suckered into trying it. I guess I’m grateful that in Ohio we have a strong Republican House and Senate. Because if not for them, Mike DeWine would be a runaway train of liberalism and big government expansion.

Rich Hoffman

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‘Joker’ Movie Review: The best movie that should have never been made, Todd Phillips owns the next mass killing

My impression of the Joker film by Todd Phillips is that it is the best movie that should have never been made. It was brilliantly directed, edited, and written. The acting was fantastic. The cinematography, the soundtrack, all the technical parts of the movie were just superior. And from the vantage point of the Hollywood bubble it was an interesting insight into how they view the world, so its worth seeing. I think everyone should see the Joker, especially since it is now out there in the world. To put it mildly, I loved hating it. At the end of the film I felt as if Hollywood had slapped me in the face and tried to steal from me and I wanted to lash out at them. But I was grateful for the insight into their minds, because that was very valuable. Joker is that kind of film. It was the most articulate exploration in film of mental illness that I can think of in any movie, and it stacks up with some of the great movie classics in film quite boldly. But with all that effort to tell the story of a mentally ill person who has fallen through the cracks the way countless homeless people do in real life, the point of the movie was to insight revolution on the scale that launched communism in the streets of St. Petersburg in 1917. The film is quite bold in making that announcement and the way Todd Phillips presented the movie, it was a cry for action into other mentally ill people who are out there stuck between the cracks. He made this movie for the anti-Trump ANTIFA types and was trying to do nothing short of provoking an insurrection of anarchy in our city streets using this movie as the guidepost. The next mass shooting that happens I personally will place the blame at the feet of Todd Phillips, the writers and director of this masterpiece of chaos and destruction.

The Joker film is probably the best movie that should never have been made. That last half hour was very reckless and an obvious callout to Antifa violence and anarchy. But that's fair game, the rules swing both ways. https://t.co/FolyEKEj76

— Rich Hoffman (@overmanwarrior) October 6, 2019

A few years ago, a movie like this would never have been made, and most studios would have inserted some logic into the director’s view of this story to protect the corporate image of Warner Bros. But in these Trump hating days of the Hollywood bubble, the producers and studio executives hate President Trump as much as Todd Phillips obviously does. When Madonna threatened to blow up the White House with Trump in it during her famous speech that got her into all kinds of trouble, Hollywood allowed Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro to make their anti-Trump films exactly the way they wanted to without restriction, and to make a splash around the world that would put an end to elections where people like Trump were getting elected. At the end of the Joker, Joaquin Phoenix is dancing on top of a police car as ANTIFA type terrorists dressed in Joker masks are burning everything in the city streets with a mob worshiping him while all the action was in slow motion and playing to a seventies inspired soundtrack trying to tap into the hippie days of that volatile period of American history. They weren’t shy about it, kill the rich, because they have it coming.

Yet I saw in it beyond the brilliance of the story to the real mental illness of the Democrat Party itself which was on full display. The story of the Joker complains about inequality and government funding for mental health to extreme degrees, and quite effective from their liberal perspective. I will say not to embarrass her, but my wife cried hard at the end of the movie and she spent a considerable amount of time talking to the theater attendants about how she couldn’t believe that people hated America so much as the filmmakers of the Joker. They of course were kids and had no idea what she was talking about. But she couldn’t stop herself. The hatred shown in this movie was just too much for her and she couldn’t believe people were so deranged from reality. Most people I observed left the theater not in such a state as they were better at concealing their feelings, but they weren’t happy. One of the best examples of that mentally ill view of the world was where Zazie Beetz’s character knocked on the door of Arthur Fleck’s apartment wanting to know if he was following her around the city stalking her. She was a very pretty woman and the fantasy of the left is that such a young lady would be in such a dire straight and even asking out such a loser as Fleck on a date. In the real-world Sophie Dumond would use her looks to land a nice mate with a good job, not some stringy haired loser without any money. In the real-world beautiful women like Zazie might care about people like Fleck, but they certainly wouldn’t date them. The movie Joker is filled with these little idealistic homages that if analyzed correctly show the true insanity of the movie’s viewpoint.

Every liberal assumption about the world was revealed, an extreme hatred of the rich, the need for social programs made by exploring not only the mind of Arthur Fleck but his tragic mother Penny Fleck. And the film goes on to essentially say, there are more crazy people in the world than the rich, contrite, sane, and we outnumber you. Only in reality the mob at the end of the movie comprised of thousands of protestors all dressed in clown masks and in real life, it would be a fraction of that amount. Most of those dumb kids would be home playing Playstation, not out performing Antifa violence. And that radicalism certainly doesn’t have any power to flood over into outside the city limits where space allows people to get away from the rats of mismanaged cities and liberal policy failures. Like the Joker’s girlfriend in the movie, the hope for a mob is just a fantasy, in real life only the real losers would be participating, which is the future of ANTIFA, the Trump impeachment attempts, and the election of 2020. It all makes sense to Todd Phillips and his filmmaker buddies from within the Hollywood bubble. Joker is for them the Democrat fantasy unleashed, and it is good for the rest of us to see it so that we can know how they think.

Even though much of what is in the Joker is interesting, and a fantasy from the liberal point of view, the call to hate filled action cannot be mistaken. To try to hide such intentions behind a comic book character and to call it as a “character study” is beyond reckless. I think people will die because of this movie and violence will become standardized, even justified by real life Arthur Flecks roaming around out there in the world who watch this movie, put on a clown mask and kill people by saying, “you have it coming.” Because you’re rich, beautiful, or even sane and that because they want a world of equally insane people, they have a right to kill you the way the Joker did. A movie like this is dangerous because there was no good guy there to stop the Joker the way that type of insanity is handled in a traditional Batman film, even as it was in Suicide Squad where Batman made a small appearance in the film. This movie had the future Batman only as a victimized little boy, the Joker was unchallenged, and presented in a very romantic fashion that mentally deranged people would certainly find attractive. And I felt it was all very intentional, and an attack on me personally as an American. And for that, I’m just a little pissed off. Yet, happy to see a truth through film that was not quite so obvious before I saw this movie. Its nice to see how the enemy thinks and by his own actions, Todd Phillips made himself an enemy of America with a sheer hatred that not even many terrorists would feel. Which made him the perfect director for this diabolical work of art that is even more vicious than maybe he even intended but was truthful in all its derangement. While its true this movie should have never seen the light of day, it ultimately has, and you should see it. It is what the political left has in mind for our world, and we should all know the truth of that ambition.

Rich Hoffman

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Everything You Need to Know about Ukraine: The “false solution” of the Democrat Party to remove Trump from office to hide their own crimes

It was never a conspiracy, but there are a lot of people who’d like you to believe it is. The real reason that the Democrats want to impeach Trump is out of their own preservation on many levels, mostly the debacle that has always been lingering out there involving Ukraine and the many billions of dollars that were lost out of tax payer funded assistance, which without question has trickled back out into several directions to build the media correlation that we see now that has been largely anti-Trump in its narrative. Many liberals in politics use what magicians call a false solution in order to establish a psychological misdirection to perform whatever trick they are attempting and there is an actual science to it. In that science, there is massive theft going on that is enriching many beltway participants, far beyond people like John Kerry’s son, Joe Biden’s son and obviously the fall guy Paul Manafort who was placed into the Trump campaign as part of the sell. Unfortunately for all these criminals and outright thieves which go straight into the Obama White House and the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016 and was assisted by the FBI with a clear document trail that Glenn Beck established quite clearly in this remarkable bit of reporting he did on his Blaze television show, the evidence is quite clear as to their guilt. You would do well to watch the entire episode shown below and to share it with a friend, because this is what’s really going on with Ukraine and the desperate attempts the Democrats have to cover their crimes by getting rid of the one person in the entire world who can expose them, President Trump.

One thing that Beck didn’t cover much in his scathing report on the who, what, when and where regarding why so much American attention was involved with Ukraine to begin with is the whole false solution robbery that is the center of all activity there for which Paul Manafort was set up from the beginning as an insert into the Trump campaign to destroy it from within. You’ll have to remember dear reader that in the summer of 2016 even with Trump obviously clear to secure the Republican nomination the political beltway types didn’t give the New York billionaire much of a chance of winning the presidency over Hillary Clinton. The sentiment, even with the Wikileaks emails revealing major problems within the DNC and the Clinton campaign itself, that Hillary would easily beat Trump and that the White House would stay in the hands of Democrats. So, they were sloppy in their dealings in the Ukraine to funnel money and buy favors within the media paying off a lot of mortgages and providing a lot of vacations to exotic locations for those they wanted to influence.

To see how they played the trick of building up and positioning Manafort you would have to go back to March of 2016 where a reporter for Brietbart News, Michelle Fields complained that the previous Trump campaign manager Cory Lewandowski had forcibly grabbed her at an event in Jupiter, Florida which she pressed charges. At the time several other candidates were still hanging on to secure the Republican nomination, so the accusation was obviously political. Also at that time people still believed that political consultants and campaign managers were how you won a political race. Trump was running his own campaign which nobody had really seen before, so the thought was that Lewandowski had some kind of magic sauce and that if that were removed, then Trump might fail. Also, at that time was the very real possibility that Trump would win the nomination and beat his rivals to go up against Hillary Clinton, so Paul Manafort was hired to secure delegates at the convention, which of course caused a power struggle between Lewandowski and Manafort.

Once Trump saw that he had a real shot, but the media wasn’t giving him the credit he deserved he moved toward Manafort to shut up the constant criticisms by the media about his chances at maintaining dominance at a contested convention in the upcoming summer, so he needed he felt a mainstreamer in Manafort to represent him. The Trumps as a family had never done anything like this political campaign before so they wanted to put to ease all the claims that Donald Trump wasn’t experienced enough to hire the “right” kind of people. Manafort was dangled out there like cheese in a mouse trap to shut up all the critics but what was really going on was that Manafort had been a plant all along to derail the Trump campaign at the last minute and attach this Russian corruption story by Manafort to Donald himself in the last days of the campaign giving Hillary Clinton an easy shot at the White House. Clearly the Democrats wanted Trump to win the nomination over the other Republican rivals so that they could have what they thought would be an easy win in November for their party. What they didn’t expect Trump to do was to fire Manafort in August once he had secured the nomination and hire Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway.

The Russian corruption story was what Democrats had been building all through the nomination process to hide their embezzlement of billions of dollars siphoned off the Ukraine involvement, so they stayed with it to control Trump no matter what happened in the election. The FBI had been involved and found itself stuck with maintaining the story even though it was quite clear that Hillary Clinton should not have been the Democrat nominee due to her email problems with her server. Director Comey found himself in a tough place, his wife and daughters wanted Hillary to be the first woman president but he was running an FBI that understood the rule of law had been violated and Loretta Lynch had been caught on an airplane making deals with Bill Clinton to put the whole email investigation to bed and to get control of the FBI from the Department of Justice. So, Comey tried to play it both ways and give everybody what they wanted, which caused him to open, close then reopen the case just days before the election which kept the whole Hillary Clinton scandal open right up to the election.

The unthinkable happened, Trump won the White House and this left all these corrupt players now exposed with lots and lots of loose ends, so they did the only thing they thought they could, they attacked Trump right out of the gate so they could pull the pin on the Russian connection established by Manafort from the outset. Only there was no Russia story, it involved them, not Trump and being smart the new president wouldn’t play along. If he had been the type of person who listened to political consultants and danced to the media strings like most past presidents had, they may have duped him into playing along. But, as a billionaire, he didn’t need their money or their opinions, so he followed his own instincts giving their attempted magic trick no power over him. And now they are stuck with the story they tried to pin to him only it doesn’t fit and they have ended up looking like complete idiots.

Since so many people are involved, and likely have seen some of that stolen money come in their direction they have no choice but to stick to the story of their “false solution.” Its kind of like a magician conducting a magic trick on stage and they try to divert the attention of the audience on the false solution while they put the rabbit under the table so they can pull it out of a hat, but a little girl in the front row keeps her eyes on the magician and not the false solution and points it out to everyone embarrassing the magician greatly in the process. But the magician must keep the show going in order to save a little face as the scrutiny increases and that’s essentially what we have here. They have all been caught and they are trying everything to divert attention away from the crimes they have committed, at very high levels involving many of our best and brightest in politics and the media. Their last hope of concealing their crimes is to impeach the President of the United States. That is their only hope of getting away with the biggest scandal in not just American history, but of the world. But we’ve seen the rabbit under the table, and we can’t take our eyes away now.

Rich Hoffman

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The Joker: Todd Phillips activism is obvious, the villians are not the 1%

Everyone is talking about the Joker, the new comic book movie from Todd Phillips who set out to shake up the world and lured the very good actor, Joaquin Phenix out of retirement to perform the role. Critics are crazy about it, and conservatives understandably are very concerned as the direction of the film is clearly justification for the type of violence that we are seeing currently out of Antifa. I have not yet seen the film, but know enough, especially after watching the review from a person I respect in Grace Randolph seen below to get a clear picture of what’s going on. The allegory is clear, the Joker was a victim of a cruel society who decided that he’d either kill himself or kill other people. And the main perpetrators of his victimization was the father of Batman himself Thomas Wayne. There are many other contributing factors but ultimately, it was Thomas Wayne who serves very much as the Trump-like villain from the perspective of the Joker and without question there are many millennials who are reacting to the film the way Grace has in her review, feeling quite a lot of sympathy for Arthur Fleck—the character who eventually becomes the Joker.

I think movies like this are always good to play with and I admire all the ambition. On the business side the movie is a brilliant strategy, they kept the cost down, but they have all the quality, and obviously they have great buzz. I’m sure when I do see it that I’ll like it. However, the tragedy is that it obviously is a story that is intent to explain away evil from the perspective of victimhood and will undoubtably inspire others to yield to their sorrows and behave poorly in real life becoming maybe not so much the Joker, but the parasites who follow him in the fictional context and who do eventually kill Thomas Wayne and his wife in the film, which gives birth to Batman through the son Bruce. From there we all know the story, but how it mimics real life is what has everyone talking and that is the concern of our topic here.

In yet another Hollywood example the story telling perspective coming from within their view of the world is that the rich should be taxed and are ultimately evil. As members of the top 1% of society if is people like Thomas Wayne who are ultimately out there hurting everyone with their greed and climbs for power with a ruthless view of the world they control, and in the wake of their existence creatures like the Joker are born. To interview any Antifa member or really any Democrat today—especially the writers of Saturday Night Live, this Joker film is the Hollywood protest to the Trump administration and what they perceive is created by wealthy billionaires who look down their noses at battered personalities like Arthur Fleck and eventually get what they have coming to them for their lack of compassion, therefor becoming the murderous thugs of terrorism.

And I have no doubt that was what drove actors like Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro to this relatively small budget drama, was the political activism that would cascade off it. Todd Phillips as the director knew what he was doing, he has stated that he made the Joker film because this modern woke culture has spoiled comedy, and he’s not happy about it. As the maker of the Hangover films which I can’t stand, he feels he needs to address the situation and from his perspective within the Hollywood bubble he came at this subject with some interesting diatribes. However for many others working in and around the film, this is clearly and anti-Trump character study and a call out to what they are calling “the resistance” to put an end to his administration and to all those of us who elected him.

In the Batman mythology I have always liked the Wayne family and wanted to know more about Bruce Wayne’s parents. This version of the Joker villain from that mythology obviously turns that perspective on its head. Thomas Wayne is alluded to be the actual father of the Joker due to an illicit affair leaving the mother of Arthur to go insane with grief. And of course there is further evidence that money corrupts and has driven both Thomas Wayne and his wife to sheer evil due to their love of wealth sneering down their noses at the downtrodden. Given what Todd Phillips has said in public it is clear that what he is really feeling was illustrated in the film’s ending where it wasn’t the Joker who killed Thomas Wayne and his wife, it was the mob that he had inspired who did, and that is the dangerous message of this film.

Rich 1% types are all bad and need to be eradicated is the message. Thomas Wayne was originally supposed to be played by Alec Baldwin who has been playing a parody to Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live and Phillips wanted more of that in his film. Supposedly due to scheduling conflicts Baldwin didn’t make it, but the intention cannot be overlooked. Todd Phillips made a movie using the Joker as a character to inspire his own mob of anti-Trump troops and Hollywood quickly got behind the effort for the activism projected. They hope to do just as the Joker did, inspire the downtrodden to rise up and lash out against the corrupt politicians and their rich double lives, and to bring villainy to the American way of life using the excuse of victimization to drive their lust for revenge.

However, these kinds of stories never do the wealthy justice or truly grapple with the actual reality of these interactions. It is all too easy for those who are lazy in life to blame their circumstances for their predicament rather than overcome those oppositions with hard work and prudence. And that should be the story with the Joker, but as we all know, that character is the supervillain of Batman, so he was never supposed to be a good guy. But Hollywood is using that excuse to make an anti-capitalism film aimed squarely at the millennial generation and to put them into the streets as Antifia members, or whatever the latest version will be for the purpose of changing the political landscape. So people have a right to be angry at this film. But I would say that rather than be angry, make films of your own. The message can go both ways. Nobody should embrace their victimhood. They should instead seek to overcome that status for the benefit of all. Without question the new Joker film is an attack on the way of life that Trump voters support. But don’t do as they do and claim that it isn’t fair. Stories are perspectives and it doesn’t take much to tell a story that criticizes productions like this Joker. Who cares that Arthur Fleck was molded by a society that treated him poorly? The real story and the one that often doesn’t get told is that the 1% are in the extreme minority because they don’t accept their victimhood and that is how they get rich, because they don’t sit around crying about it. And they aren’t bad people as portrayed in the embodiment of Thomas Wayne but are elements that people should and could easily try to live up to. Because ultimately, the difference between Bruce Wayne and the Joker is that Batman sought to use his position to do good, and to be just, and to overcome his sorrow, not to yield to it. That is what makes him a member of the 1%, and that isn’t a bad thing, everyone should aspire to be thus.

Rich Hoffman

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Asking Questions: Elon Musk understands that answers are less important

This interview shown below with Elon Musk and the very popular YouTube Channel ‘Everyday Astronaut’ was remarkable in many ways, so it is worth sharing here for those who don’t find themselves exposed to these kinds of things. I thought both participants in this interview were covering some very extraordinary aspects of our current culture and how we are getting from here to there so to speak. For me, I think the concept and pace of engineering that is going on at SpaceX regarding the Starship MK1 is truly transitory for our civilization and is one of the most important things going on in the world today. I’m a huge fan of the work SpaceX is doing on many levels, and it didn’t surprise me to learn that Elon Musk’s primary philosophical motivation is science fiction, especially the work of Douglas Adams in his pinnacle work, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. There is of course a little Star Wars sprinkled in for good effect behind the scenes making this interview unusual in the boyish optimism displayed that is unheard of in government driven attempts at space travel and for one main reason, the understanding that its not always the answers we seek, but the question.

For me the work of Joseph Campbell has always been what has unlocked the ceiling of intellectual potential. It doesn’t matter what does it for an individual, it could be Douglas Adams, George Lucas or Joseph Campbell, what matters is that the creative work does something to unlock the limits of human understanding by provoking the questions that need to be asked, instead of always focusing on the answer. Answers to questions are relative to the interpretations of those responding. What matters more than anything no matter what the endeavor is in life is in discovering the questions that then need answers, otherwise the results are always ambiguous. For this Starship MK1 where conventional avionic development would favor composite construction, due to a lack of autoclave availability in such sizes and not wanting to wait for one to be built, SpaceX moved on to this stainless steel design, which is brilliant not just esthetically, but in function. It is an excellent example of how asking the right questions can change everything and bring to life the benefits of invention.

And watching Elon Musk give that interview was a true delight, not in that it was a stuffy discussion about how smart all the engineers are and how dangerous space flight can be, but it was beholding the energy of a child who just wanted to play with new toys for the sake of discovering new questions to ask where smart people could relish in answering those ponderances. To do something for the joy of it that changes our perception of reality is quite an important thing to do and it all starts with the mechanisms of discovering the questions that need answers, otherwise answers without questions have no relevancy. It is the question that matters more than the answer.

This is certainly the case with all leadership functions, and when people wonder why CEOs or presidents of companies are so important to growth and prosperity it is for this basic function. A company can hire hundreds if not thousands of people to answer questions, but often it is only a small number of leadership who knows how to ask questions drawn out from obscurity to set people on a pace to discover an answer. If the questions are never asked, then what work is there for people to do to resolve it? So the creative aspect of something like building this new Starship is that Elon Musk thought to ask the questions of, “why can’t we make it out of stainless steel.” “Why can’t we fly it to Mars.” “Why can’t we refuel in space?” “Why, why, why.”

When humans stop asking questions is when they cease to become effective in their roles, and their intellectual decline is not long behind. Children naturally ask lots of questions, but we are all taught that at some point, maturity means you have the answers and questions are less and less asked—which is the state of decline for any culture. Seeing Elon Musk and his engineers at SpaceX asking lots of questions that often outpace what reporters even think of considering was refreshing because its not something we see much of these days unless you happen to be at a SpaceX media event, or a gathering of geeks and freaks at a local comic con. The optimism of those events is not in the answers, but in asking about the possibilities—the what if scenarios, even in science fiction ponderances. For Musk ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ inspired him to ask lots of questions and the results of those pursuits is in the creation of very wonderful things, like the Starship MK1 complete with its 6 Raptor engines carried to orbit by 37 others in the Super Heavy booster powered by cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen.

Innovation is always directly connected to having the ability to ask questions and to provoke a quest for answers, and that is the reason that everyone in the world is not equipped to be a leader at the level of a CEO. Its not the work that is important, the spreadsheets and presentations that are often associated with such roles, it’s in the ability to ask what if questions and to set the mind of others on fire seeking answers. A society without questions is one that is on the decline victimized by their own stagnation. And to see Elon Musk so alive with enthusiasm the way a seven-year-old might be is refreshing because we can all see the benefit. Musk when presented with a problem such as, “sir, we can’t find an autoclave anywhere in the world where we can build the fuselage out of composites.” “Well, what other material can we make it out of?” Thus, we have a question that unleashes a new technology and means to build very large craft to enter into space. Otherwise, in less innovative companies driven by less ambitious leaders, the engineering staff would have forced the project to remain on a path to stay within the confines of the accepted practices for aviation, which would be composite construction as someone builds an autoclave of the proper size.

Perhaps more important than asking the right questions is the ability to move quickly, and in that regard, that too comes from the ability to ask questions to keep everyone’s feet moving. Entering market share while imaginations are still hot is more important than all other aspects of development and the pace of engineering at SpaceX is remarkable because the employees are allowed to ask lots of questions and to drive innovation toward the proper answer for questions that are pursued beyond relativity, but in the abstract rules of science which are not discovered by any other means but in asking questions. The more questions the better. And when questions are asked, we as human beings come alive with that same excitement that we had as children discovering things for the first time, and that is what will ultimately save us. Its not the science we discover in the process, but in the quality of the questions we think to ask no matter what the means is in discovering which questions to ask as adventure demands the contemplation of a thinking species.

Rich Hoffman

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Bob Iger’s ‘The Ride of a Lifetime’: Forget the social justice, just tell the story

I am not an anti-Bob Iger guy. As the head of Disney, I have been willing to forgive that he’s a liberal because I think he has done a pretty good job as a CEO in making that company one of the most powerful media companies in the world—arguably the biggest. Personally, I love Disney, but my interests often dwell in the challenges that corporations have in creative endeavors which obviously is a challenge the bigger a company gets. In that regard, Disney has been an interesting study and its not easy. After all, media is changing and its hard to get out in front of that change, and Iger has tried to do his best, and most of the time, he’s been right. However, with Star Wars he did blow it which I have talked about many different ways and I was very interested this week in reading his new book, ‘The Ride of a Lifetime’ that he admitted as best he could that he had some regrets about not following George Lucas’ story treatment for the latest trilogy. Clearly if Disney had handled that situation better, the Star Wars brand would not be as fractured as it is now. Iger took this opportunity in writing this book to throw the fans a bone and offer an apology which should take the edge off the activism for the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker film coming in December.

Iger’s book was good and insightful providing several examples of learning as he went along especially handling characters of great talent, like Steve Jobs and George Lucas in painting a picture of that very fine line in using massive corporate power to tell a story, when the best of what a story is comes from individual experience. Personally, after The Force Awakens came out, I was not happy and it took me a long time to give Star Wars a chance again. Largely for me it was that I had grandchildren who could use the stories the way I had shared them with my own kids. I raised my family on Star Wars so it seemed like a shame to throw everything out the window just because Bob Iger thought he needed to corporatize Star Wars to protect the brand. After all, from his point of view, Lucas was selling off the Star Wars property to let Disney take all the risk of making the next trilogy even if they might not be big billion dollar sellers at the box office the way that the market is lined up these days. Lucas thought he was selling Star Wars to a friend who would protect the brand for the long view. And the fans split along those lines. Now before the next film Bob Iger is doing just that, he’s reaching something of a compromise in getting back to the original Lucas vision, but it may be too late. Or maybe not. I’m willing to give it a chance for the reasons I mentioned. Because the upside is far too valuable.

I often talk about Star Wars as being more than just an entertainment franchise. Mythologically Star Wars is one of the hottest modes of storytelling that we have seen in all our human lifetimes. Even screwing up the canon storyline which takes place over thousands of years, Star Wars and the power of Disney and Lucasfilm before it, produces an enormous amount of cultural content, from books, television, video games, to of course the movies. The amount of material that there is from Star Wars has more of an impact on our culture than most religions and has far more power than governments over the minds of a population. And Star Wars is truly a global endeavor, no matter where in the world that you go, people know the brand and something about the stories. There are very few entertainment options that have that kind of power, so managing all that power is tricky business under even the best conditions. But at the heart of the Star Wars debate is the long desired human trait to understand free will, immortality, and the nature of spirituality. Even though the stories are kid’s stories, the questions they ask are quite large and have the tools to put minds on a higher place, exhibiting the best attributes of science fiction as a platform.

Iger’s mistake was that the very same skills that have made him a great CEO, that certain ruthlessness that you have to have to trust your own instincts are the same problems that caused him to second guess the Lucas story treatments which have now alienated fans. The Lucas story was set to take the characters that had been built through many decades of novels right into a philosophical story that might have been more like The Empire Strikes Back and less like a Star Wars greatest hits like The Force Awakens was. Iger had doubts that people would spend a billion dollars at the box office to explore the nature of the Whills and the concept of immortality within the universe. But in the end, because he held everything too tight, Disney killed the property anyway.

For me the interesting thing that Star Wars explores, that isn’t covered anywhere else in all earthly cultures is the very different approaches between oriental philosophies and the occident. Oriental obviously being collectivist in nature and the occident, focused on individual free will. The parts of Star Wars that works is the occidental part. The parts that people often don’t like even if they don’t consciously understand why is the oriental portions. However, the oriental aspects are important to the story telling so not every Star Wars story can be a billion-dollar grosser which is hard for a corporate spreadsheet to show to investors. But the study of the philosophy does drive merchandise sales for decades if done properly, and now ultimately Iger appears to understand that the Lucas vision should have been followed without his tampering.

Even for those not too interested in entertainment and pop culture aspects, the Bob Iger book is a good read and well worth the time. The selling of ideas is a tricky business after all. Speaking for myself my dealing with some of the people mentioned in Iger’s book left me wanting to live in exile just as Luke decided to do in both versions of the cannon, the extended universe and these Disney stories. And that is a challenge explored in the great book of philosophy called Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The problem remains and this is true of both Lucas and Steve Jobs who merged with Disney while he knew he was dying of cancer so that their companies could live—no matter how much liberal Hollywood types and creative geniuses want to talk about the independence of their craft and the superiority of ownership over corporate rule, ultimately the temptation to use big corporate engines to assume risk is where they always go wrong. Or is it really wrong? If Iger does make things right with fans I would argue that there are many more Star Wars story telling options for the future because of Disney ownership than without it. Many more books, more theme park tie ins, and many, many more visual mediums than if George Lucas had held onto the Star Wars brand. And with something with as much story to tell as Star Wars can tell Lucas was right to sell it to Disney. The mythology can explode so long as everyone understands the objective. And after reading the Iger book, I am sure he does. The question is, is it already too late? I certainly hope not. I’m rooting for him; I’d like to see everyone come out well in the end.

Rich Hoffman

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