American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going “on strike.” They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. The trend is so pronounced that a number of books have been written about this “man-child” phenomenon, concluding that men have taken a vacation from responsibility simply because they can. But why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them?
As Men on Strike demonstrates, men aren’t dropping out because they are stuck in arrested development. They are instead acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers. In addition, men are going on strike, either consciously or unconsciously, because they do not want to be injured by the myriad of laws, attitudes and hostility against them for the crime of happening to be male in the twenty-first century. Men are starting to fight back against the backlash. Men on Strike explains their battle cry.
Legacy publishers charge too much for ebooks, so it becomes useful to note when they have a good book on sale. My books are generally priced at $2.99 or $3.99 because they don’t have to support the legacy overhead of offices in Manhattan, multiple editors, and costly staff. There is now a two-tier market, with legacy publishers holding their ebook prices much too high (often higher than paper!) to protect sales of paper copies, while small and self-publishers offer very similar quality books at half or less price. Authors make more by self-publishing but tend to sell fewer copies since self-published books lack the imprimatur and marketing of the legacy publishers. It is still true that reviews and media exposure are much harder to obtain for self-publishers since it’s simpler to ignore all self-published books than to pick through the dross for the gems, but by volume there are roughly equal numbers of “excellent” books being published each way.
The book discusses how annoying and in the end counterproductive diversity training by web is. Some ironic Wikileaks emails from Georgetown University to John Podesta first informed him of a new mandatory training program (RESPECT training), then nagged him to complete it:
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing both to inform you of the launch of a new University-wide, mandatory online program for all faculty and staff: RESPECT: Preventing Discrimination, Harassment, and Sexual Misconduct, and to ask you to take that course.
Georgetown is committed to creating a respectful and inclusive culture. As members of the Georgetown community, we are all responsible for ensuring that everyone in our community has the opportunity to learn and work in an environment that is free from harassment, discrimination, and sexual misconduct. Recent events at colleges and universities across the nation remind us that we must all be knowledgeable about our legal responsibilities and vigilant in creating a respectful learning and work environment.
RESPECT is a new course designed to help you avoid, recognize, and report discrimination, harassment, and sexual misconduct. The course provides you with information about University resources, policies, and procedures to address and resolve such matters. It is in the interest of each one of us and in the interest of our community as a whole to take this course and understand our obligations. The course is flexible and can be completed in as little as 30 minutes. You may take it from your desktop or laptop, either at work or at home… Completion of the course is required by the University. All faculty must complete the RESPECT program by March 20, 2015 — to ensure compliance.
Once you have completed the Mastery Test, which reinforces what you have learned, you should be able to get immediate confirmation that you have successfully completed the course: 1. Upon successful completion of the mastery test, you will be presented with a printable certificate indicating that you have completed the course. This is your primary confirmation that you have completed training…. Thank you for taking this course and for your help in ensuring that the University is a supportive and inclusive community.
URGENT: Please Complete your Mandatory RESPECT Training
Dear Colleague,
According to our records, you have not yet completed the mandatory “Respect” online course. The deadline by which all current faculty and staff were asked to complete the course has passed, so we request that you please complete the course as soon as possible. If you are a newly hired Staff and/or Academic Administrative Professional (AAP), you have 30 days from the date of your hire to complete training. Additionally, for newly hired employees, completion of the “Respect’ course is also a requirement to pass your probationary period at Georgetown.
You can launch the course by going to respect.georgetown.edu. If you have not yet started your training, you can take the course on a tablet such as an iPad, in addition to your desktop or laptop.
Thank you for your efforts in ensuring that we have a work and educational environment that is free from discrimination and harassment.
*If you have completed your training within the last 24 hours, you may disregard this message.
If you have any questions about the course content, please contact the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action (IDEAA): phone: 202-687-4798 email: ideaa@georgetown.edu
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Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations
The first review is in: by Elmer T. Jones, author of The Employment Game.Here’s the condensed version; view the entire review here.
Corporate HR Scrambles to Halt Publication of “Death by HR”
Nobody gets a job through HR. The purpose of HR is to protect their parent organization against lawsuits for running afoul of the government’s diversity extortion bureaus. HR kills companies by blanketing industry with onerous gender and race labor compliance rules and forcing companies to hire useless HR staff to process the associated paperwork… a tour de force… carefully explains to CEOs how HR poisons their companies and what steps they may take to marginalize this threat… It is time to turn the tide against this madness, and Death by HR is an important research tool… All CEOs should read this book. If you are a mere worker drone but care about your company, you should forward an anonymous copy to him.
Vince Foster was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that.
For years afterward, she was haunted by his abandonment. She relied on her people to protect and serve her, and Vince had left her exposed in their time of need. She found new servants, and even when that snotty Obama stole her prize just when it was almost hers, the comfort of the money rolling in and the loyal minions that followed them kept her going, and now she was close, so close to the brass ring…
The plane landed, and she could hear murmuring from the back. The reporters were asking for comment about James Comey’s letter — new emails had come to light from the FBI investigation into Anthony Weiner’s sexting, and so Comey was revealing that the FBI was continuing the investigation he had declared closed months ago. Into her. That bastard Weiner! Why are the men always doing stupid shit their dicks tell them to? It was all unraveling…
She made a simple statement to the reporters and returned to talk to Huma, who cried. No words, she thought — I know exactly what how that feels.
That night she fell asleep in front of the hotel room TV. She woke with a start — to the sound of chains rattling, and moans. On the screen was a dark shape forming over the CNN talking heads, and the sound had gone off. The form of Vince Foster — green, face half rotted, suit stained and oozing fluids — looked out at her and spoke.
“Hill — it’s me,” the apparition said. She was distracted by the worms crawling out of his mouth. “You’re in trouble again. And you’re the only person who can save you.”
She was frozen, but finally managed to speak: “What can I do?”
“Come with me,” Vince said, beckoning. And she was somehow through the screen and looking down on Washington from above.
“This city was yours,” Vince said, gesturing at the white-columned buildings below. “You were the One to lead the loyal bureaucrats to rolling over all those naysayers and keeping the very best people from the very best schools in charge. Those filthy racist rednecks from flyover states were going to be crushed, and the future would belong to pre-K, free college, clean energy, and social service jobs for everyone. You can still pull it off. But only if you handle this right.”
They passed into the Capital through the dome, and swooped down the halls toward the Senate chamber.
“But this is where you are heading, if you don’t change course now,” Vince said, nodding toward the dias. A vote was going on, with the end of the roll call. The chamber was quiet as the result was announced. “You see,” Vince said, “even Democrats voted to dump you after the election guaranteed the office of President would be in their hands. Impeachment gets you out of their hair. Kaine will be able to run things without the baggage and the investigations. You’re worth more to them dead than alive. And I of all people know how that feels.”
They seemed to be weightless, but the sinking sensation was real. “How can I stop this? Huma — should I cut her loose?”
“That’s not going to help. You have to change yourself. Be the person you’d have to be to overcome your image problems. Turn over a new leaf. Humble yourself. Admit error. Promise to be open and honest, and mean it. You’d be amazed how quickly you can be rehabbed if you can pull off sincere.”
She absorbed this idea. She tasted curdled milk. “Humble?”
“You are but a public servant. You will close down the Clinton Foundation. Bill will not be allowed in the White House — maybe a separation would be wise. You apologize for all the lying and the casual treatment of secret documents and the death of that Iranian scientist, and any other agents you endangered. You admit that you’ve spent a lifetime lying and influence-peddling and that you want to make amends. You’ll apologize to the people of Haiti for abusing their trust and siphoning off most of their relief funds to pay off your friends. You’ll make the White House the most transparent in history — maybe find some new words for that, those might be tainted.”
She looked down at the bald spots of the Senators reflecting the overhead lights. “Who’s going to believe any of that?”
“It used to work to claim you were born again, that you’d found Jesus. That won’t fly anymore. You could claim victim status — a sob story about how your mother treated you, and Bill let you down and shamed you. You couldn’t help yourself. But the conniving and greed are over. You’re taking a vow of poverty and service.”
“Fuck that shit,” she said, and spit down at a Republican who had voted to convict. “Thanks for warning me about these losers. We’ve got files on all of them. If I go down, so do they.”
And then she woke up — but the national nightmare was just beginning. Tiny Tim (Kaine) was sent out to denounce Comey only a week after he praised him.
Corporate HR Scrambles to Halt Publication of “Death by HR”
Nobody gets a job through HR. The purpose of HR is to protect their parent organization against lawsuits for running afoul of the government’s diversity extortion bureaus. HR kills companies by blanketing industry with onerous gender and race labor compliance rules and forcing companies to hire useless HR staff to process the associated paperwork… a tour de force… carefully explains to CEOs how HR poisons their companies and what steps they may take to marginalize this threat… It is time to turn the tide against this madness, and Death by HR is an important research tool… All CEOs should read this book. If you are a mere worker drone but care about your company, you should forward an anonymous copy to him.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Death By HR is a book that every CEO should read. As should the rest of us. Anybody’s who has been looking for work, or working for an American corporation currently or in the last few years has experienced the lunacy and extreme dysfunction in just about every function related to Human Resources. Death By HR examines why the dysfunction came about and provides the start of a road map to escape the tyranny being imposed on us.
The book does not pull it’s punches, nor should it. Right from the introduction the book lays out the case for what has happened in all too much of American business.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why I Can’t Get a Job I’m Overqualified for….
To start off, this book hacked me off. or once, someone has, through careful research and thought, and in concise easy to understand language has explained why the hell our country is falling to pieces. It should have been obvious to someone with my 35 years in the work force in a wide variety of jobs.
I’ve been fighting HR stooges for years and years. Now I know why it I can’t make much forward progress. Why it took six months to hire me as a paramedic for a major health system despite paying hundreds of thousand dollars in overtime to fill shifts that there were no warm bodies available. Why, after three attempts to fill a job I am more than qualified for, I can’t even get much more than a postcard saying “thank you, but no thanks.” Hey, I’m a paramedic, give me minimal training and toss me in, I’ll do just fine.
I now know why LinkedIn is so popular as a way to essentially bypass HR so people can make direct contact with the people who actually do the hiring and establish relationships.
So, if you have been in the workforce for years and are thinking about a new job or have been trying to find one and can’t get anywhere, this book shows you why and how.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read for managers or workers – Almost an HR survival guide.
Reading from Kindle Unlimited. Excellent book on where HR is today and how it got there. Many excellent discussions on how to develop an HR department that will contribute rather than being a cost center. For non-managers the book gives plenty of insight into the modern HR system enough to help you pick an organization with a healthy HR department or if you have a problem HR, how to deal with them without getting burned.