by Tom Baugh
Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter
by Tom Baugh
Published by Starve Monkey Press, Inc.
www.StarveMonkeyPress.com
Copyright © 2009 by Tom Baugh All rights reserved. Unless otherwise stated, text and diagrams written and copyrighted by Starve Monkey Press or its authors remain the sole property of Starve Monkey Press or its authors, respectively. You may not modify this material or distribute it, in whole or in part, in any form whatsoever, to any other party, without written permission of Starve Monkey Press.
Published in the United States of America.
ISBN: 978-0-9825431-1-5
Library of Congress Control Number: n/a
Publisher Information
Starve Monkey Press, Inc. Roberta, Georgia
See our website for more information about the publisher, including resources for aspiring authors and contact information:
www.StarveMonkeyPress.com
Trademark Notices Starve Monkey Press, Starving the Monkeys, Caveman Capitalism, Caveman Capitalist and the Banana Hammer logo are the trademarks or registered trademarks of Starve Monkey Press, Inc. All other trademarks not specifically listed are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Version History See the website for this book for errata and version history:
www.StarvingTheMonkeys.com/errata Original Paperback, An Entrepreneurial Horror First Printing, June 2009
Second Printing, July 2009
Small Paperback, Fight Back Smarter First Printing, October 2009
Kindle Edition, Fight Back Smarter First Release, December 2009
Table of Contents
Foreword
Monkey, Defined
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1, Enthusiasm to Attack
Chapter 2, Who Should Read This Book
Chapter 3, Fundamental Concepts
Chapter 4, Caveman CapitalismTM
Chapter 5, Prancing Rabbits
Chapter 6, The Font of Value
Chapter 7, The Shamans
Chapter 8, From Force or Fraud
Chapter 9, A Tribe Consumed
Chapter 10, Employment Trends
Chapter 11, Math and Science
Chapter 12, Scholarship and Sadi Carnot
Chapter 13, The Idea Factory
Chapter 14, Organizational Value
Chapter 15, Entrepreneurial Success
Chapter 16, On International Relations
Chapter 17, Waco and Other Texas Wackos
Chapter 18, The Drug War
Chapter 19, Gun Control
Chapter 20, Smoke Filled Rooms
Chapter 21, Cho
Epilogue I
Epilogue II
Epilogue III
Foreword
This book is a work of political analysis, illuminated with fiction, and is written for entertainment purposes only. Although most of the autobiographical events in this book unfolded exactly as they are described, nothing in this book should be presumed to be any advice for any course of action whatsoever. If you follow what you perceive as advice in this book in your own life, business decisions, and relationships, then don't blame me when things go sour. I warned you.
On the other hand, if you follow what you read in this book and things turn out great, then I'll be happy to take all the credit.
I came up with the idea for this book several years ago when I wanted to examine the results of some of the business decisions I've made over the years. And how, with very little energy applied, these decisions, and their results, might have been twisted. Sad to say, many of these decisions were based on ideas which have no validity in the modern world, but which seemed at the time to have some merit. I thought that these ideas might be cast as a satire to illustrate their foolishness, but could not find the vehicle in which the story would make sense.
The catalyst for this book came when I read "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Patriot", by Naomi Wolf. From my reading of her book, Ms. Wolf casts her political opinion as a letter to a relative, and yet doesn't warn the reader that it is satirical. Similarly, I realized I could cast my ideas in the form of a self-help book for budding entrepreneurs. The critical link having been made in my mind, it was just a matter of fitting the puzzle pieces together. For this book, I choose to warn the reader up front.
While writing it, I realized that the principles of the collectivists who lay traps for the unwary entrepreneur happen to be the same underlying causes for all of the increasing, deliberate misery which we see around us. The destruction of the individual is at the heart of all our problems as a nation. Yet, there are simple actions which we as individuals can take to defend ourselves from, and ultimately defeat, the collectivists who are destroying everything of value in our civilization. And none of these things involve scribbling on a scrap of posterboard or waiting breathlessly for the next word or marching order of a false prophet of the collective.
I also enjoy asking myself what might happen if some small detail is changed in the world around us. Fans of Harry Turtledove will understand the fun this idea can generate as he twists and manipulates history in perfectly reasonable ways to create surprising results. While he uses history and cultures as his canvas, I choose the world of small business, and the battle for the individual spirit, as mine.
Often, as you watch a thriller you might become engrossed in the subject so much that for a time it seems real, at least until the credits roll. Likewise, portions of this book are written as an entrepreneurial satire, cast as an autobiographical narrative which might be a small business owner speaking to a close friend. It was my intent that the ideas in this book also sound real, as if they were the result of that narrator's own experiences.
The narrator's ideas are his own, I am merely the conduit, while the autobiographical portions are taken from my own life. The events the narrator describes from his life actually happened to me, simplified where necessary to make a better read. Sadly, in the case of my Virginia Tech experience, the events happened exactly as described. Other experiences may have slight changes to improve the narrative, to simplify description, or to conceal classified information. Where possible and appropriate, I provide unclassified public domain references to help make the points. Or at least provide clues to the points.
After reading this, the more literary among you might agree that Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite horror writers. Most of his stories begin with relatively benign descriptions which draw the reader into an increasingly disturbing unfolding of the misery and terror which lies at the end. While I can't come close to his classic, ageless work, I have to admit that he is a key inspiration. And yet, a reader today can easily distance himself from Poe's stories. No one lives in ghastly, drafty mansions at the end of a wooded drive anymore. We live in a world of computers and instant communication within clean, bright drywall boxes with identically manicured lawns at the end of a stub of a concrete slab for a driveway. And so, Poe no longer has the raw primal impact which he once did, because it is harder to relate to the setting of the story.
Yet the battleground which we face involves precisely those drywall boxes and manicured lawns. These are the things which have enslaved us as a nation. That and our collective unwillingness to see the truth and to speak it, unless we are careful to use the correct tone and diction. As if we have become a nation of little girls at a tea party.
Instead, this battle requires that we begin to think differently about the world around us, and that requires recognition of the growing horror which is around us. A horror which many of you may feel, but not have the words to describe because the vocabulary required has been s
tolen from you. Among other purposes of this book, I intend to restore that vocabulary and to illustrate the horror which we face, and its simple, well-meaning origin, so that we won't ever make this mistake again.
The best in the world for handling modern horror in my mind, without question, is Stephen King. He can take you from the average guy to a buried alien mind-controlling spaceship without your questioning why at any point along the journey. He is also one of my favorite modern authors. I chose this model to illustrate how simple foolishness easily mutates into civilization-destroying nightmares. On the other hand, this book doesn't have any alien spaceships, time travel, virulent diseases, pits or pendulums, or for that matter any blatant descriptions of spurting goo. But it is intended to project a sense of lingering ill-ease of the kind which can only exist within your mind. And to do that it must twist the commonplace around you into the horror which it might actually be.
This isn't a feel-good yes-you-can sort of book, but it could be, if you put it down soon enough. Like right now. Because if you don't, by the end of this book you will be wishing I were an Islamic fundamentalist.
Or an atheist. Or anything other than what I am.
Monkey, Defined
In the context of this book, a monkey is defined as a creature who chooses to collectively seize, by unearned means, the property, material or intellectual, temporal or spiritual, of its rightful owner. The means employed may be fiat, guilt, force, theft, fraud, subterfuge, or anything other than a willing and negotiated exchange of value.
In our modern world, each person is given the opportunity to make a conscious choice whether to be monkeys or men. Conspicuously absent from this definition is race, birth, gender, heritage, cultural influences, or any factor other than that singular deliberate decision.
Men choose to live their lives upon their own merit. It is this very spirit of independence of thought and action which makes men the prey of the monkey collective.
As such, monkeys abandon their claim to the rights of men. But monkeys could just as easily choose not to, and become men themselves.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank all of those readers of the first version who provided feedback for typos and indicated concepts which should have been explained more clearly. These people are brave souls who ventured past the eyesearing cover of the previous version to take the time to find out what was on its pages. Accordingly, they applied the adage that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. And yet, in our highly marketed modern world, we all have to accept those limitations. For now. Hang onto those crayon-colored books, my friends, especially those numbered and/or autographed copies some of you have. One day they may be worth something as a limited first version. You never know.
I especially thank all those readers who reached out to me and let me know how this material echoes what they have been thinking for years. That was the point, to let you know that you aren't alone, despite how the collectivists on both sides try to keep you enslaved to them. I appreciate each and every one of those emails. Keep them coming.
Not all who encountered this book were fans of the material, however. More than a few suit-monkeys were horrified by what they found here. Good. That's the point. Thanks to those suit-monkeys who let me know how this work threatens their ability to continue stealing from the rest of us. Accordingly, some of those portions have been dialed up a notch in this version. You suit-monkeys keep those closed doors, emails, reviews and blog hate posts coming too, because this edition is certainly not the last word on the topic. Keep feeding me your fears, for those are the raw material for the engine of war we will use to defeat you.
I also thank Jedi Short for thinking of the new cover concept of the cymbal monkey sitting on a pile of change. Audrey, in addition to her proofreading duties, added to this the Constitution, storm clouds and party buttons. Finally, I thank Monica Yother for her great work pulling all these ideas together into that hilarious cover. Monkey looks most disturbed, doesn't he? He should be.
Chapter 1, Enthusiasm to Attack
The first time I hit someone on the shinbone with a pipe it was a surprisingly satisfying experience. The target of my enthusiasm that time was an elitist thug two years older than me and consisting of about 60% more mass. Elitist, in southern Mississippi terms, meant that his father taught at the junior college, and had a swimming pool. Contrasted to having parents with a menial factory job like my mother, or an oilfield job like my father, or a farmer like most.
The pipe was the natural evolutionary result of the hand I had been dealt. I was a smaller-than-most boy in a mostly agricultural area, unlikely to ever be the first round draft choice to pick up a hay bale and toss it onto a trailer. As I was also doomed to be the valedictorian of my class, bullies were a fact of life. I can be best described as stubby. Built like the result of some horrible industrial accident in which my legs were sawed off to unequal lengths and then sewed back on crudely, my upper body had yet to develop. Given the diet of uni-crock cooking fed to me by my mostly senile but well-meaning grandmother, and nominal caretaker, this situation was unlikely to change.
So, having the physique of a scrawny broad-shouldered penguin, I enjoyed the benefit of the necessarily limited options in regard to fight or flight this presented. Flight, ground or aerial, just wasn't going to happen. Fortunately, most bullies didn't like experiencing pain on a repeatable schedule, so this is the lesson I learned quickly. In their fuzzily limited group perception, I became a more or less rabid housecat who was illegal to shoot, and so they moved on to lesser prey.
Not that I was a tough guy by any stretch of the imagination. As a kid I had my nose broken at least once that I can remember, and probably more that I don't, bruised bones, innumerable black eyes, bloody nose, cracked teeth, etc. I was only taken to a doctor for an injury one time, the rest were left to heal as they may. Many times I cried from the rage and frustration of having to deal with this over and over, only feeling the pain hours later. I often left a fight looking worse than my nemesis, but in most cases the lesson only needed one teaching. Afterward I would accept their advances at friendship and many stayed my friends throughout high school.
I soon learned to never fight fair. This absurd notion from a western ethic which never actually existed lost its charm when faced with a stream of unfairly-sized adversaries each in search of education. Hence the pipe and the time and place of my choosing, that being when Shinbone #1 rounded the corner outside the band hall alone. This particular aspiring bully was particularly annoying, since, overall, he was a little bit prissy and was trying to impress some dainty blonde pigtails. Moving in elitist circles, he hadn't yet encountered the options with which others were becoming familiar. I had also taken that day to affirm the idea that I didn't want to keep bleeding anymore.
As he lay there rolling in pain holding his bruised yet disappointingly unbroken shin with both hands, I abandoned my original plan of smashing his braces into his throat with the pipe. Instead, I took mercy and discussed with him my plans should this event have to be repeated, and how he might fit into my world-view. In today's terms I would have told him that he was now "my bitch", but that phrase wasn't yet available. To reinforce this concept, a week later my friends and I filled his prissy truck cab with trash, and he did nothing about it, to my satisfaction.
That experience opened a new world of opportunity to my eyes. Although there would be more bullies, never again throughout graduation would I suffer so much as a scratch from a fight, fighting in the traditional sense having been rendered obsolete. Later, this new approach would strongly influence how I would run my business.
As a child I aspired to be an astronaut. In that day most astronauts were still either Air Force pilots or Naval Aviators. So, I applied to the Air Force Academy and Naval Academy, and won appointments to both. During the application process I first experienced the unfair fight extended to organizations, or "gaming the system", a term I had not yet heard.
All service academies
use the "whole man" concept when selecting among applicants, meaning that one could be a literal rocket scientist, but without physical prowess this excellence would be diminished overall. Extracurricular activities, like being first chair trumpet in the band, were nice, but a sport would be better to round out my application. So, I joined the track team, a choice about as ridiculous as you could ever imagine if you've ever seen me in person, but the only choice which didn't need formal tryouts.
Fortunately for me, the track coach didn't like Shinbone #1 anymore than I did, thinking him needing knocking back a bit. Coach also happened to see what I did to Shinbone #1 while walking to his office in the field house. Enjoying the idea of a band geek who didn't mind mixing it up, he chose to just keep walking that day. I was in, even posing for the group team photo for the yearbook, having never attended even a single competition and only two practices.
At the Naval Academy, I encountered only one bully among the ranks, and that one early into the first semester. Most of my classmates had clued into the idea that you didn't get there without having something going on, and generally treated each other with respect and mutual admiration. But, this one guy needed help understanding that you don't screw with someone while wearing a uniform tie. I didn't even have to hit him.
The Naval Academy was a system waiting to be gamed writ large, but I didn't see that at first. Having taught myself chemistry in junior high, I easily tested out of, or validated, that worst plebe-killer course. As a Mississippi tree-monkey I also validated gymnastics and was offered a spot on the varsity team, an opportunity I later regretted not having taken. At the time I was fearful of not making it through, having had only a rural public school education. Meanwhile, many of my peers there were more well-to-do or had fathers, grandfathers or more who I would soon find out were well-known in naval history. I had not yet learned that this distinction counted for less in my success than I thought at the time it would. So, in my ignorance, I turned down the offer of varsity gymnastics.