Triumph of evil; How others believe rumors and look away from wrongs

Also see my related more current post dealing with this subject:
Where is God/Jesus in Harmful Rumors; Often Perpetuated by Christians (or those claiming to be Christians)?



“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

This quote by Edmund Burke is a favorite of mine and is seen at the end of Tears of the Sun (starring Bruce Willis), which I find to be a very inspirational movie.
See: Tears of the Sun; imdb

I believe this not only applies to the evil of nations/terrorists etc. but also applies to the evils that can harm us or our families in ways that may not necessarily result in death (although considering what has happened to us this certainly has approached it).
This means looking the other way when a program such as Food Stamps is not providing for those it is designed to help yet gives aid to those not truly in need.

In my case my family has been through some major battles with an autistic son, a daughter who was “harmed” by a man that took advantage of my wife during a nervous breakdown brought on by more that she could handle including criticism of her by others and postpartum depression.
More recently as of this blog post, by vicious rumors MOSTLY circulating in the local Christian community about my so-called failures to provide for my family and much more (sadly most these persons know little of what I quietly done for others as I do not advertise it and most of what gets into the open comes for judgments with no basis in fact).

These rumors had crippled my business and we can no longer provide for our family. YET when I have confronted others that have allowed these rumors (or in the case of the harm that could have been stopped upon my daughter or the judgments upon my son), these person have verbally chosen to look the other way and hide behind “trust in the Lord”.
My business link:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/

I know for a fact that persons at my Church in West Covina chose to look the other way while the affair went on and while my family was brought to financial ruin by the spending spree of my wife and her “friend” (heck, we had to leave my business, home, and life behind to live in a Motorhome for 18 months for the safety of our family, not one person from this church bothered to wish us good by, unlike when others would leave, this was unspeakably evil IMO).

Later after she finally recovered she lost it again after my son was kicked out of Church for essentially having autism. Here is a quote by the Tammy in the nursery: “All the Strohmeyer children have problems and are mean and have bitten my child” (Tammy and her husband were down right cruel towards us and had no understanding of Christ’s love).
First of all I secretly watched as her son tormented my much younger autistic son, second my middle daughter is extremely sweet natured (although dyslexic). After this so-called meeting, my wife would then listen to this man once more and believe what he said about the Church (that she should not be there) resulting in my daughter’s abuse at this point in time, to which these persons have her “blood” on their hands.

This previous post deals with this more:
Does doing the right thing really pay in life?

I am now in community that believes that I am a failure in business do to my moving here to escape from these influences and leaving my business in the hands of others without my best intentions at heart. This rumor is also based on my dropping my largest account (the Bahooka Restaurant) to support an employee that was being sexually harassed by a new owner there, but this was looked at both then and now as a failure due to the hard financial hit we took.
See this link to an article about the Bahooka:
http://www.fish-as-pets.com/2007/12/eatery-with-100-aquariums.html

Thankfully this employee respected this and although he did not agree with my move to Oregon, supported me and recognized that I at least attempted to always do the “right thing” in business or on a personal level. This included how I only sold products that I thoroughly tested (often using scientific control methods).

We still meet when I go down to LA for products to discuss new aquarium/pond products and for testing of many such products (such as LED Lights, the use or replacement of products such as Twin Tube UV Bulbs & Straight Lamp UV Bulbs).

Here are a few of these product links from my business:
*Aquarium LED Lights
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/LEDLights.html
*Twin Tube UV Bulbs
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/UVCReplacementLamp.html
*Straight Lamp UV Bulbs
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/1525wattuvBulb.html

Back to my treatment by the local business community; When I confronted my previous employer as to my treatment due to these rumors (I was basically treated like I knew NOTHING about business despite many years experience including college and positive feedback that this is where my aptitudes lie), it was thrown back in my face and persons with far less abilities and credentials were verbally paraded to me which made me feel really small. Also other persons were mentioned by him and torn down that I have supported in many ways (most in quiet, not looking for recognition other than the Lord). Yet I have continued to fight these lies about them, all the while these same persons have said and spread very vicious lies about me.

Another rumor is that I am a pervert based on taking in an employee and her family before we moved here to Oregon so as to help her & her kids with her housing and other “home issues”.
I had no interest in her, heck I was a virgin until I was around 27 and have been hurt by girls in my youth to the point that I am easily pushed around by them, far from any interest in “scoring”, not to mention anyone with any honesty knows I have NEVER looked at woman as conquests (& ANYONE who knows me inside knows this, including my counselors such as Bob 1 (who I still meet with in his new home in the Central Valley of CA during business trio to LA), Bob 2, and Roger).

In this town similar rumors (spread mostly by a vicious “troll of a man” named Kenny) have circulated based on helping a young lady that was thrown out of her home (sadly here I tried to keep her with her family/father, but this too went unappreciated and worse). She herself apparently seemed to believe these as she began treating me like an idiot later and believed lies spread by another person who was clearly a false Christian.
See Galations 5:22 & especially Matthew 7:20 shows how we can spot false Christians by their fruit.

What she did not know or refused to know is that I was well aware of his rumor spreading as many others told me of his lies and I personally caught him trying to trip me up at Cary’s of Oregon by checking inventory on a Sunday, and he obviously switched inventory to make me look bad to upper management.
Admittedly one of my faults is to “continue to take it” until I have had enough and then finally get mad in a less than professional/adult manner (I am working on this fault/weakness with prayer and Steven’s Ministry Counseling).
In this particular case I did just this after having “enough” of being made to look stupid and questioned about everything including trying to put an end to an new male employee (Steven) that was being treated horribly by another female employee (Chelsea). This girl (Chelsea) admitted in meeting with upper management that the person that was spreading false rumors about me was also emailing her with BS about me.

Despite my being correct (as per others at this workplace and my counselor) in being upset with this treatment by her and others and with the lies being spread, I still should not have “yelled” at her and later apologized, although it is clear from Myspace and other places that this apology was sadly never accepted (so much for showing Christ’s love huh?).

What is also interesting is that many of the persons I have helped with shelter and finance have been men, but since I do not parade this around (or any of the times I have quietly helped others as the Bible commands to do in secret) it is easily ignored.
Matthew 6:18 clearly states: "so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
My point in referring to this verse is that most persons seem to look at my rather uncharismatic personality and judge me by this, rather than what is truly inside, not even knowing what I have done or truly been through since I try and keep the majority of my acts of doing what God commands in Luke 10:25-37 a secret.

I just posted a new web page about our towns local forum to hopefully attract some local business (I have only had ONE sale locally in three years as of this post), all that I got was criticism.
See this link: http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/GrantsPass.html

Basically it was the same old thing of talking down to Carl which dates back to the 4th grad.
Even the local newspaper (the Grants Pass Courier) will contact incorrect sources ignoring that outside of this community, my "aquatic articles" are well read and respected with some of the most in depth, unique, researched information to be found any where.
These aquarium/pond articles have content and FACTS not found anywhere else that I am consulted on internationally, yet here I am not worth even consideration locally.
See this link for a web pages listing many of my aquarium/pond articles:
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Information.html

This includes aquarium & pond subjects such as:
*"Aquarium Lighting":
Aquarium Lighting
*"UV Sterilization & Sterilizers":
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumUVSterilization.html

I will sum it up (I could go on and on with many more examples) by saying that “Trusting in the Lord” is great and I really need to pray more and beseech the Lord’s help here.
HOWEVER people are God’s mouth pieces and as the quote states, this evil that is following my family WILL NOT STOP until others stand up for what is right.

One more point as a comment to those who say I should be trusting in the Lord and that I look for evidences of his love in the wrong places, I have this analogy:
“If I read and am told that the Moon is a sphere yet every time I look up at the night sky see a Moon that is a cube, what am I supposed to believe?

My point is the moon is obviously a sphere and as well I (& others) should be trusting in the Lord, but when all we see is failure and get slammed by those who should be looking for the truth, what is one to think (in other words all I see is the moon as a cube).

For a related post/article reviewing the movie "Courageous":
Courageous, Movie Review

For another relevant post to this one please read this post:
Does doing the right thing really pay in life

Or an article that shows how out of control many have become:
The Occupy Movement

Business Ethics and Communty Support

I currently own a small internet business that sells aquarium and pond supplies. I also sell ocean themed décor such as seashells, shell night lights and shell wind chimes.
I moved to Oregon in December 2002 to help my family and sold my long time Aquarium Maintenance Business and small Pet Store.
For more about me, please follow this link: “Carl Strohmeyer; Biography” .

My thought as it pertains to business is the role image and honesty play in business today. It used to be that if you treated customers well, treated your employees well, and put honesty above image it would pay off in the end. Unfortunately this is not true today (at least in my experience).

Almost everything I sell such as UV Bulbs, is based on my experience in professional aquarium maintenance and in particular; tests I have done with UV Sterilization, Fish Nutrition, Aquarium Lighting, and Medication. My Article References:
*Ultraviolet Sterilize Use, Facts, Information
*Aquarium Fish Food Information, Nutrition facts
*Reef, Planted freshwater Aquarium Lighting Information
*Aquarium Fish Medication Use, Information, Treatment

Product Reference:
*Ultraviolet UVC Replacement Bulb, Lamps

I am on several aquatic forums, where I try and pass on my experience. The trouble is I get flamed by many who have no practical experience and state that I am only trying to sell something.
If this were true, I would not be where I am today. I have on multiple occasions told customers in my maintenance business and pet stores NOT to buy a product as this product would not help or worse, cause more problems for their aquarium.
Yet customers have then gone elsewhere and listened to dishonest advice and purchased unnecessary or over priced, poor designed aquarium products only to have problems.

Another point is image; I have never placed image or sales above employees or people in general, yet in one instance when my largest service customer (representing 40% of my business with over 120 aquariums) had a change of ownership (son took over from father) and he had made sexual and obscene comments to my employees who went there to maintain aquariums, I asked him to cease and apologize.
He refused and I refused to send my employees there (basically ending our service with them).
What was the community reaction to this? Condemnation of me for not providing for my family and for stupid business practice. Of coarse my business struggled for several years after this.

Later when I had to move after my wife’s nervous breakdown (she suffered severe postpartum depression) and subsequent affair (brought on by three special needs children, with the autistic child being the straw to break the camels back, despite the fact that I was doing most of the care at this point), we moved to Oregon where my sister could help with the kids.
There I took on a job at a candy factory as the production supervisor. Despite my years of business experience and college education in business management, everything fell on deaf ears to upper management.

Everything at this factory was about image, and every problem started at the bottom with the employees rather than my opinion of managing from the top down. The community strongly supports this business, even giving “Business of the Year Awards” despite its turnover rate of staff and general poor working conditions.
During my time there I brought productivity up my increasing morale and we kept employees much longer.

I am not there now and they only have two employees (out of a staff of 25+) that have been there longer than 3 months.
While my business gets basically no community support, even though I run my business with people and honesty first, image third.
Funny thing here is I sell products at less than half the price of the “good ole boys” and that are of far better quality, go figure?

I guess the bottom in business, big and small, is image and profit are everything, honesty and people are nothing.
But I also know differently, when morale is high, profits can be too (Jet Blue has succeeded here). These decisions are also the public’s responsibility, as you vote with your pocket book.

In my blogging, I came upon this site:
“Slow Leadership-It's Time to Think Again About Productivity”- "The 2005 Workplace Productivity Survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that almost six out of ten (58 per cent) Americans identified poor management as the biggest obstacle to productivity. Long hours won’t help with that."
This site was great reading, and comments were also interesting and well informed.

Another article worth reading for the other side of the equation:
OWS Movement