2010 "State of the Council Address"

[B.Kahuna]

And I just checked-none of these videos are on the NCAC facebook page.

[NIN]

Must.... Resist.... Urge.... To.... Dogpile... "The Chairman".....   

Kinda hard to dogpile a dead guy. Oh, wait, that's "The Chairman of the Board," not just "The Chairman."



Maybe this guy? Allez Cuisine!

[lordmonar]

Agreed. An "NCAC" page (similar to how other organizations have a Facebook page for the organization itself) would have been much more appropriate.

The current page is less about the NCAC, and more about C/King as head of the NCAC.

That's another irritating thing about this...there already is a page for NCAC on Facebook.

there are at least three of them.

[B.Kahuna]

I only see one fan page and one group...

[TheMuscle1007]

The fan pages for NCAC and the Chairman as you can see are updated frequently. The group has not been updated in several months. I think this was a test run for the NCAC Social Networking Site. I think C/Lt Col King has been already "dogpiled". Everyone hopped on CAPTalk to judge his motives and did not focus on what he spoke about. Check out his posts rather than where he posted it.

So far every post I have read on this Blog has focused on a minute issue about his character, uniform, or camerawork, which is irrelevant. As long as he is representing CAP and the CAC in a professional manner, lets move on and embrace the resources that are present. If you have an issue with the Chairman, contact him directly. If he ignores you than your judgements are correct, but if he responds I guess he can put his duty before his "supposed" motives and your argument's are then void. Honestly, I see all of this communication as being a form of gossip.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

After reading this thread, it sounds like a complete waste of time to click over to Facebook or YouTube. You guys have done it for me.

Just from the "ad" at the top of this thread, it all sounds way too pretentious and overblown. It even has its own "logo," like the Obama O. Why? What's the point? Someone's getting a little carried away. Next thing you know, someone will come up with a silly shield-shaped emblem for the NCAC and someone else will start pushing for it to be a separate command under the national commander or something.

All that said, at some point this thread starts to bash, so please, let's be careful. Like I haven't made fun of authoritah creep in CAP already....

[lordmonar]

The fan pages for NCAC and the Chairman as you can see are updated frequently. The group has not been updated in several months. I think this was a test run for the NCAC Social Networking Site. I think C/Lt Col King has been already "dogpiled". Everyone hopped on CAPTalk to judge his motives and did not focus on what he spoke about. Check out his posts rather than where he posted it.

So far every post I have read on this Blog has focused on a minute issue about his character, uniform, or camerawork, which is irrelevant. As long as he is representing CAP and the CAC in a professional manner, lets move on and embrace the resources that are present. If you have an issue with the Chairman, contact him directly. If he ignores you than your judgements are correct, but if he responds I guess he can put his duty before his "supposed" motives and your argument's are then void. Honestly, I see all of this communication as being a form of gossip.

No I don't think he has been dog piled enough.

I did listen to his message.  I heard his message back in September at the NCAC meeting...guess what....same message.  So his state of the CAC is....nothing has changed in six months.....

So....after looking at the message let's look at the damage that the messanger caused.

Can you really say that any outside observer would take the NCAC seriously now?  As I said before.....if he has spend as much time on the message instead of the bells and whistles.....maybe we would have a real message.

You say that nothing matters so long as he is representing CAP in a professional manner.....but that is our point....he is not.  He is making himself, the NCAC and CAP a joke with his state of the council address.

[raivo]

So....after looking at the message let's look at the damage that the messanger caused.

Can you really say that any outside observer would take the NCAC seriously now?  As I said before.....if he has spend as much time on the message instead of the bells and whistles.....maybe we would have a real message.

You say that nothing matters so long as he is representing CAP in a professional manner.....but that is our point....he is not.  He is making himself, the NCAC and CAP a joke with his state of the council address.

Bingo.

Now, as interesting as this discussion is, I'm a bit busy at the moment chronicling my achievements for the brand new "Section Leader Raivo" page on Facebook. (Fans welcome!)

[SarDragon]

Im not as concerned with whether or not he is or is not "the man for the job" as I am with the fact that you would judge him off of "what you have seen".

I'm going to throw two quote out here, and then discuss them.

"First impressions are lasting impressions."

"Performance talks; BS walks."

I have been on both sides of each quote, myself.

My first impression is that he is egotistical and self-serving. I couldn't get past the first thirty seconds of his most recent video. I watched almost a minute of his first video. Neither gave me a favorable first impression. I have seen nothing else, other than his having reached C/LtCol, of a favorable nature. There many other folks who hang out on CT, of equal or lesser cadet grade, who show me a lot more, based entirely on what I "see" here.

As for the second - what performance? He has, to date, shown us nothing. What more can I say?

[raivo]

I'm going to throw two quote out here, and then discuss them.

"First impressions are lasting impressions."

"Performance talks; BS walks."

And a third: "Perception dictates reality."

[TheMuscle1007]

I along with several other CADETS, thought he was sincere, and that he took a straightforward approach to his address. Besides a few corny camera cuts and the applause, he did nothing wrong.

You said he has done nothing, but from what I see, he along with the NCAC has worked hard to accomplish these tasks. Right now, on facebook, I can see that they're working to prepare for the Winter National Board and Legislative Day. Ive participated in Legislative Day before with my squadron and I think that's an outstanding way to promote CAP. Also, during that entire weekend the NCAC will be meeting and working. So you say he hasn't accomplished anything but I see that the NCAC has done a ton. The term isn't over yet and the Winter National Board is where the majority of the work gets done for both the NCAC and NHQ. After that, if nothing is accomplished then I encourage you to contact him yourself. Ive also read some of the minutes and agenda items. I for one am looking forward to the Cadet Activities Handbook and now I am extremely looking forward to the CAC Film Production (maybe that will be better).

Raivo- I understand your sarcasm, but understand, This is a CIVILIAN based organization. If you want to create a fan page for yourself you are legally allowed to.

The ironic thing is I dont see too many cadets complaining, maybe about the cheesy effects, but nothing against his misrepresentation or question of motives.

Anyway.... I will leave you with three quotes:

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." -Eleanor Roosevelt
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing." -Elbert Hubbard
"The only person dumber than a fool is one who argues with one"- Proverbs

[lordmonar]

...and that he took a straightforward approach to his address. Besides a few corny camera cuts and the applause, he did nothing wrong.

That is a contradiction right there.  There was nothing about this production that was straight forward.  If he had a single camera angel and just did the speech....added a fade in and fade out with a little music....that would have been straight forward.   

You said he has done nothing, but from what I see, he along with the NCAC has worked hard to accomplish these tasks. Right now, on facebook, I can see that they're working to prepare for the Winter National Board and Legislative Day.

Prepared in what way?  I want to know about the cadet knowledge base application where cadets could give input directly to the NCAC that was discussed at the National Boards.  I want to know specifically how the new cadet beta testing is going.  I want to know about what specific input the NCAC provided to the new leadership manuals.

Ive participated in Legislative Day before with my squadron and I think that's an outstanding way to promote CAP. Also, during that entire weekend the NCAC will be meeting and working. So you say he hasn't accomplished anything but I see that the NCAC has done a ton. The term isn't over yet and the Winter National Board is where the majority of the work gets done for both the NCAC and NHQ. After that, if nothing is accomplished then I encourage you to contact him yourself. Ive also read some of the minutes and agenda items. I for one am looking forward to the Cadet Activities Handbook and now I am extremely looking forward to the CAC Film Production (maybe that will be better).

Again....a lot of stuff he could have put into his speech.....instead we got a bunch of nothing...with a laugh track and applause track.

...Raivo- I understand your sarcasm, but understand, This is a CIVILIAN based organization. If you want to create a fan page for yourself you are legally allowed to.

No...this is a military based organisation.  We are the civilian axillary to the USAF.

The ironic thing is I dont see too many cadets complaining, maybe about the cheesy effects, but nothing against his misrepresentation or question of motives.

Well maybe we are lucky that most cadets never saw this thing.   

Anyway.... I will leave you with three quotes:
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." -Eleanor Roosevelt
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing." -Elbert Hubbard
"The only person dumber than a fool is one who argues with one"- Proverbs

HAHAHA

You see the irony in this?

[raivo]

"This is a CIVILIAN based organization. If you want to create a fan page for yourself you are legally allowed to."

Sure, but it would be awfully silly.

Anyways, we're arguing in circles now, so... I've said my piece, I'll leave it be now.

[Cecil DP]

Cadet King  seems to have taken his "State of the Council" video off his web site.

[Nathan]

Cadet King  seems to have taken his "State of the Council" video off his web site.

About time.

[Nathan]

I'm just going to address a couple of thing, so people don't think that we're looking for excuses to go after the guy.

I don't really care if he had nothing to say that was important. In fact, it's pretty much expected. I'm not going to hold it against him that as the NCAC chair, he has nothing new to say, especially since I never held the position and imagine it's a difficult position to fill in terms of pushing new things forward AND having some semblance of a life outside of CAP.

But here's what I do have a problem with.

1) Empty speeches are not uncommon when they are mandated. This one was not. He CHOSE to give this speech, and did so with the expectation that he would be presenting some sort of new information. He did not, which makes me personally question the purpose of the speech. There are a couple of possibilities, but the obvious one is ego fulfillment. Not really many reasons a person would give a speech that apparently was NOT mandated by NHQ, did NOT say anything new, and that he could have canceled at any time. Instead, not only did he go through with it, but he did it with flair...

2) The things he talked about, as I said earlier, are nothing new. They do not say that he's actually accomplished anything specific, despite his insistence that he HAS accomplished things. In fact, all I heard him say that HAS happened is that he is now going to be telling the truth and setting objectives. Unless C/Col Dumont was completely blind in terms of running ANY cadet program, let alone the NCAC, then I have a hard time imagining these things weren't already in place. All we heard, instead, was that there were a bunch of programs that the NCAC either has been working on for a while or wanted to start thinking about maybe in the future possibly voting to consider that they wanted to work on it. And for those of us in the know (generally from message boards like CAPTalk and CadetStuff), we are definitely aware that none of the programs he talked about were new ideas, and that means he essentially is announcing that he accomplished... nothing.

3) It has been brought up that he cares about pushing the image of the NCAC further by doing this. That is entirely possible. However, I also realize that if I were in his position, AND I wanted to release a video that boosted the image and popularity of the NCAC, I 100% without question would have not released this video directly to Facebook with what appears to be absolutely no senior oversight. This guy had a national PAO that probably could have been working with him to make this video work really well. The fact that he released it by himself through a page he controls seems indicative of ulterior motivations.

4) The fact that no cadets have spoken against it yet (publicly) isn't really indicative of anything at all. First off, I'm going to guess that there is the fact that the number of cadets on CAPTalk that are active generally is small compared to the number of active seniors. Second, the cadets that have felt the need to speak up are (from what I can tell) CAC reps, and while I'm definitely not going to accuse anyone of brown-nosing, they at least have a vested interest in not wiping out their boss on the internet if they disagree with what he did. Third, if a cadet did see this at 12 years old, it may have actually done what the opposition says and made the cadet think, "Cool! This guy is really working!". Frankly, that doesn't change motivations of C/King, nor does it mean that he is (based off that video) the type of leader I want my cadets to emulate.

5) Which brings me to the "don't judge him 'till you've met him" argument. Sorry, not really applicable to a public figure, especially if said figure CHOOSES to make himself public. I put my name out here for anyone to see, which means that while members may not have a particularly good idea of what I'm like in person based off of what I write, it means that they have every right to have a mental picture in their mind formed on my public internet presence. Likewise, C/King made a choice to put himself on the internet. In fact, he really went out of his way to do it. If we're judging people based off of actions, then the posting of the video and the video itself both provide valid material.

As I said, I do not have a problem with the emptiness of the speech. And I most certainly do not have a problem with C/King himself. It's the fact that he decided to put out a flamboyant video on a fan site dedicated to him for no evidential reason that makes me question whether or not this was a self-promotion attempt in disguise as an "official" action to promote the NCAC. THAT would be what I have a problem with.

EDIT: I had this written shortly before it was posted that the video was taken down, and didn't really want it all to go to waste. But given that it is gone, I'm going to go ahead and drop the discussion from my end, since I imagine he was either smart enough to take it down or told to do so by NHQ, and I'm willing to respect either decision.

[Major Lord]

What a great kid! A real go-getter!

Major Lord

[JoeTomasone]

a pervasive pattern of grandiosity

That pretty much nails that FB page.    Captain Tomasone also dislikes first-person narratives self-written by people in the third person. 

[Pumbaa]

Look I have no problem with FB.  I'm on FB and even the USJFCOM where I work  has a FB page. But pUUuuulleeeze!  Let's not be so over the top.

[Major Lord]

a pervasive pattern of grandiosity

That pretty much nails that FB page.    Captain Tomasone also dislikes first-person narratives self-written by people in the third person.

We are amused by your retort!

The Major Lord