Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Are strong people really hard to kill or is it all about class envy?

8/14/2013


MY WOD for today: (two sessions)

 Stretch bands and Indian clubs, foam roller, and 2000 meters rowing, for warm-up

Dead hang barbell from the waist power cleans. 8 sets of 3

Lumberjack one arm press: 8 sets of 5

Kettlebell farmers walk 24,28kg pairs.

Heavy bag tai kicking

Are strong people really hard to kill or is it all about class envy?

                I just finished reading Pavel’s blog on the “class warfare envy” on strong or fit members of American society. Now here is a immigrant(legal type), who came to America for a better life as a former resident of the old Soviet Union, now stating there are noticeable elements here in the US that reassembles those he experienced in his former country in regards to class identification. I have to agree with Pavel on this observation, as it been long time coming to address what is happing to American society that being strong or having values that had always served us well, now being degraded and attacked. The weak will attack the strong but it will be of little consequence if the strong does not alter their missions.

                For those who do not know Pavel Tsatsouline,he is one of the Russian strength coaches who brought the physical art of Kettlebell fitness to the US over a decade ago. Every since then, Kettlebells has been a part of the fitness industry and continues to expand. Pavel also has a no nonsense style of fitness that promotes strong human development besides the benefits of this Kettlebell  strength training. It’s hard to describe his methods other than to say it’s unique. (check out his blog article “Strong First” below)

                I just believe that you cannot be physically strong and not detest those who want to weaken our exceptionalism, we as a nation has always thrived with. It almost like the enemies of strength want us to be we like they are so we can become the minions of “Sheepols” who can be collectivized into the latest mission to destroy are successful past. NOW BEFORE YOU GO HATEING ON ME, I AM NOT A POLITICAL REPUBLICAN NOR  DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, BUT AN AYN RAND, LIBERITIAN!

                One of my favorite leaders growing up was Teddy Roosevelt, who was born into an upper class and found that weakness will never be successful in any endeavor but still protected those who are not strong, to be one of our best presidents ever. I could discuss so many of his accomplishments but that is not the essence of this blog posting. Maybe someday I will expand on my belief that Teddy Roosevelt inspired me to do.

                Military service to me is the foundation of our freedom in a world filled with hazards and threats.  It was an honor to serve our country in this capacity even when drafted, however the progressive political elements has made that process, their hate board and to degrade .(don’t make me sick by saying “we support the troops” when most will cut and run when it takes sacrifice) At one time it was an obligation (draft board) to be part of the military protecting of our country but now those services are provided by an new class; the “under class” also called the “working class” , or those men and women that cannot find good employment or ability to fund advanced education. So our military is now a service, not so much to our country but to individual pursuits (patriotism is still part of the program).  If military service is so vital, then why is it not that or members of congress or most political positions are not former members of the military or have off spring,  that have military backgrounds? At this point Pavel who is really an outside observer, hit the point that our current members of congress(elite class), who make international policy, have no military experience nor their family, which will become our future leaders. (as the working class citizens can no longer be a member of congress without being  part and support of the “ruling class”.

                Therefore the “ruling class” (the new and improved political model of progressive, rich, indulgent, political left) don’t know longer need to draft citizens to protect our county in the military, as they now have sufficient “underclass” who are the product of lack of education and opportunity, can now hire on as “professional contractors”(Please read Steven Pressfields’ book; “ The Profession”) This is your scary future! Any political force can retrain power with strong”body guards” regardless of the belief of masses of people within that country.  Attack dogs of the “ruling-elite class  in main stream  the media; the ultimate adversary for the strong citizens!  

                What Pavel is saying, it’s not always the bulging muscle strong that makes a country but our strength that can only be derived though conflict or putting one’s life on the line for the county you live in or strong value beliefs what you will standby always and never degrade. This is strength as a concept or the human spirit in adversity.  If you avoid adversity you are or become weak!

                Most people I have been aquatinted with that were strong in body, were also strong in basic values. I think it was never a political thing, it was more of some individualism that cannot be molded into some political model that never made sense when you when you get up each day to get strong in body and mind and it all “you” and there is no outside public program  that can help you.

                Are strong people hard to kill? You bet your ass! Now you may become an “enemy of the state”.  These people who don’t die easy nor intimidated, are targeted for destruction or reeducation, as they don’t conform to the new model of collectivism, that strong don’t generally subscribe to.

                A classic example of degrading strength in the fitness business is the “Planet Fitness” gym commercials, showing that a weak looking gym manager of this fitness model is preferred to the heavy muscled person who wants to train hard. The strong person is demeaned as a freak model of fitness and shown the door and not wanted.  This is a product of class warfare that weak or individual promotion of physical strength is not acceptable and targeted for humiliation.  They are attempting to control the fitness narrative as it was new metro, gentle training movement. (Note Planet Fitness provides the public with low cost memberships, which is a good thing, but hating or critical theorizing is not necessary for getting more business) 

    Strong people normally do no demean the weak, they encourage them to become stronger not dependent or reliant. For the most part the fitness business enhances or maintains low grade, marginal effort fitness that barely keeps one healthy in body but never in strength, spirit or passion. We even target the education process of our youth to the weak end of the bell curve and not the strong end that will make us all better educated nation.

 In a running race you are to keep up with the lead runner or try to pass him. The navy SEAL’s have a more aggressive statement on this ;“second place is the first looser”that is because the SEAL’s has to be exceptionally strong to protect the weak and oppressed.

Ken

“The mission is sacred”

By Pavel Tsatsouline, Chairman-blog


I despise class envy. In any form and in either direction.

Today’s blog is about strength envy directed by today’s upper class towards the working class. Externally it manifests itself as “disdain” for strength, the way one tries to diminish what he does have. The hoity-toity make fun of the brawny brutes with their uncivilized barbells—behind their backs, naturally.

It did not used to be that way. Many rulers of the past respected and cultivated strength.

Augustus II the Strong, the king of Poland and Lithuania, broke horseshoes with his bare hands and was mighty proud of it. Henry VIII, the king of England, challenged Francis I, the king of France, to a wrestling match. The latter gladly accepted—and threw the former to the ground. Peter the Great, a legendarily strong Russian tsar, reveled in hard physical labor. Incognito, he went to study the ship building craft in Holland.

St. Louis and Richard the Lionhearted, kings who personally led their troops on crusades to the Holy Land, were well schooled in a knight’s martial skills. And these skills demanded extraordinary strength. Ironically, one could talk about “reverse strength discrimination” in the days of the Crusades. The Catholic Church unsuccessfully attempted to ban the crossbow, a weapon “hateful to God and to Christians”. Historian Rodney Stark in his book God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, explains: “The “moral” objections to the crossbow had to do with social class, as this revolutionary weapon allowed untrained peasants to be lethal enemies of the trained soldiery. It took many years of training to become a knight, and the same was true for archers. Indeed, it took years for archers to build the arm strength needed to draw a longbow, let alone to perfect their accuracy. But just about anyone could become proficient with a crossbow in less than a week. Worse yet, even a beginner could be considerably more accurate than a highly skilled longbow archer at ranges up to sixty-five to seventy yards.”

More important than physical strength, until a very recent past, leaders of the past had a strong sense of duty. Several years ago, in the midst of the financial crisis, I read an op-ed that made an impression. The author pointed out how the ruling classes of the yesteryear considered the fate of their country their own personal responsibility. The word “duty”, so thoroughly made fun of by today’s hipsters, guided the decisions of the high-ups. Not surprisingly, leaders of Western democracies were men with remarkable military careers and a deep-seated sense of duty. Churchill. De Gaulle. Eisenhower. Kennedy.

Men and women of the upper class, not just the presidents, viewed their lot as equal shares of privilege and responsibility. The conduct of the lord of the manor and his family in “Downton Abbey” is the case in point. Today’s upper class, on the other hand, is little more than “a bunch of crumbs held together by dough”. It frequently views its position as all rights and no responsibilities. How many sons and daughters of the ruling elite serve in the armed forces?

The disdain for physical strength shown by movers and shakers in Washington and New York has contaminated a significant majority of all white-collar people, including those far from the upper echelons of power. A Russian pundit recently quipped that we ought to replace the word “gentry” with “intelligentsia” in old satirical plays about snobs. “I am too good to lift heavy things. Let the uneducated brutes do it.”

I am convinced that in the back of their minds they are simply envious of the strong. And envy breeds resentment. Is this one of the reasons the USA are so polarized today? This is a slippery slope, ladies and gentlemen. I come from a country that was ripped apart by class envy and drowned in blood. Shortly after the Communist coup of 1917 my maternal great-grandmother, then only seventeen, watched her parents get murdered in front of her eyes—just for belonging to the other class.

The price exacted by envy is unacceptably high. Get strong and replace it with self-respect.

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