Posted on 12/13/2009 11:18:44 AM PST by nickcarraway
From Rush Limbaugh to President Obama, Ayn Rand and her book 'Atlas Shrugged' are recalibrating America.
From Fox News to the passenger sitting next to you reading “Atlas Shrugged” on your commute to work, Ayn Rand seems to be everywhere.
Since the economic collapse of 2008, the controversial novelist and philosopher has emerged as a leading intellectual on the right – and she’s been dead for nearly 30 years.
Rush Limbaugh touts Rand as a prophet of sorts. “Ayn Rand, she wrote ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ ” he told his listeners. “The sequel, ‘Atlas Puked,’ we’re in the middle of it.” At the tea parties that swept the nation last spring, protesters waved signs claiming “Ayn Rand was right” and warning “Read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ before it happens.”
The fresh appeal of 'Atlas Shrugged'
Consider this: “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand’s most famous novel, is set in a dystopian future America, where a socialist government has brought the country to the brink of ruin. Fleeing punitive regulations and crushing taxation, the country’s top industrialists and executives have gone on strike, virtually shutting down the economy.
For American conservatives, the significance of Rand’s message is clear. “Atlas Shrugged” is prophetic, they say, and it warns us all of the coming collapse.
It wasn’t always so. In her day, leading conservatives denounced Rand for her atheism and immorality, and her economic ideas were scarcely mentioned.
Conservative author Whittaker Chambers attacked Rand as a godless authoritarian in his famously brutal review of “Atlas Shrugged,” printed in an early issue of William F. Buckley’s seminal conservative magazine, National Review. The book’s message, according to Chambers, was “to a gas chamber – go!” Anti-ERA crusader Phyllis Schlafly stopped reading Rand’s other novel,
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
LOLOL
The loss of personal responsibility, in a universal reality of personal and corporate consequences, is tantamount to pervasive catastrophe.
“These aspects of Rand made her alien to an earlier generation of religious conservatives who gleefully launched a “culture war” against secular America.”
There was no “glee” involved. Religious conservatives were forced into the culture war by liberals who wouldn’t leave well enough alone.
bookmark
I am re-reading it right now and it is spine-chilling to see the parallels.
Interesting.
No go. Just some corporate liberals trying to figure out what corporate conservatives have for ideology. Ayn Rand, as an ideology, failed with Alan Greenspan.
But, maybe I am wrong. I saw Eric Canter on this morning as the rep of the Republican party. Asked a question on imposing financial laws on Wall Street gamers he fumbled and changed the question. Looked damn serious about it too. The wall street money is just as green for the Repubs as the Dems. The Repubs could have made gains by pointing out the Dems reforms were near bogus, but then, they would have to offer something better, something that would shatter their anti-regulation cult ideology that offers them solace from have to face the fact they are only tools of their contributors.
For sure, Canter lost votes. He is the face of the Repub party? Looked like just another cog in the wheel.
I was not aware of this essay - thank you.
God has given us many wonderful gifts in this world. John Piper is one of them...
If true, that alone would qualify her to write about Ayn Rand.
She's also better looking than most Randians, and that gets her an audience.
I found that amusing too. The thing about Ayn Rand is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I think some people just dismiss the entirety because of some objectionable facts. The belief’s that she held about redistribution and capitalism were excellent they should have been widely promoted. I don’t see Greenspan’s action as a failure on her part that is guilt by association.
Bogeyman:
an imaginary evil character of supernatural powers, esp. a mythical hobgoblin supposed to carry off naughty children.
Same here. Read it for first time last year. The second read is slower but filled with personal aha’s.
What is, “The Freeper Book Club”?
See Post #17 on this thread.
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