"atlas shrugged" will change the face of american politics

[Bern80]

I do not trust hollywood to have been faithful to the book.

I will be ecstatic if they are true to the book, it's foundational ideology and character archetypes that are the basis of this masterpiece.

Personally, if this is successful in these aspects, I hope they remake "The Fountainhead". That book is really a triumph in a way. A modern heroic epic that exalts the power and dignity of individualism, rather than drags it through the mud. Ellsworth Toohey's revelation soliloquy to Peter Keating after his betrayal of Roark is one of the BEST soliloquy's ever written when you take into account what it really means. Beats the shit out of "John Galt Speaks" by a LONG run. (which was the ONLY part of Atlas Shrugged I did NOT enjoy because I already got the point in the previous 990 pages.)

Considering I had to come here to see a trailer for it and it's release being only about a month away that suggests hollywood isn't giving it much of a push. I also saw a link on the website that says click here to get the movie in your theatre. Unfortunately I'm predicting it's going to be pretty under the radar and will go largely unnoticed. At the same time, it's lack of publicity gives me hope that it will be faithful to the book.

 

[Bern80]

Then perhaps it's both of you that are wrong. I believe wash is being sarcastic. and I think you are being serious. The problem is the premise. IF people were attaining wealth by hurting others that would be bad, but that is not reality. The accumulation of wealth does not necessitate one hurting another.

Sometimes people (and firms) attain wealth by - or at the expense of - hurting others.

Which if you will go back and watch the first part of the Mike Wallace interview that was posted you would see Rand opposses.

 

[rightwinger]

Atlas Shrugged has been around for 50 years and hasn't changed anything

 

[Bern80]

Atlas Shrugged has been around for 50 years and hasn't changed anything

To societies detriment.

 

[8537]

Then perhaps it's both of you that are wrong. I believe wash is being sarcastic. and I think you are being serious. The problem is the premise. IF people were attaining wealth by hurting others that would be bad, but that is not reality. The accumulation of wealth does not necessitate one hurting another.

Sometimes people (and firms) attain wealth by - or at the expense of - hurting others.

Which if you will go back and watch the first part of the Mike Wallace interview that was posted you would see Rand opposses.

Well it's convenient she opposed it.

What as Ayn's strategy for handling it, short of blowing up the building?

 

[washamericom]

Then perhaps it's both of you that are wrong. I believe wash is being sarcastic. and I think you are being serious. The problem is the premise. IF people were attaining wealth by hurting others that would be bad, but that is not reality. The accumulation of wealth does not necessitate one hurting another.

i was., i don't really admire stalin. there are elemental details of her philosophy, like domanique francon throwing the statue down the air shaftin the opening scene, that were uncalled for. it's a movie, it's allowed to be over the top.
rand's philosophy is a current and relevant ideology. to say that it's been around for fifty years, but hasn't done anything is just wrong. look at the country, industry, is has become cult, much like the democrat party. kidding.
just a little while ago the president of obama borrowed the line "why, i don't think of sarah palin", which tells me he read the fountainhead (or saw the movie).
so,.. no one has mention francisco d'anconia.. the impact of miss rand's work is as contemporary, as it will be controversial. this is the one movie i've waited for.
i even suggested the project to ron howard and martin scorsese, many years ago. i knew it had to be a film by a mega director/producer because it would take a lot of money to be good, plus the skills they would have brought.

 

[Bern80]

Sometimes people (and firms) attain wealth by - or at the expense of - hurting others.

Which if you will go back and watch the first part of the Mike Wallace interview that was posted you would see Rand opposses.

Well it's convenient she opposed it.

What as Ayn's strategy for handling it, short of blowing up the building?

While not addressed in the interview, my guess is that is what she would consider a valid use of a police force and judicial system. Just as (under her philosphy) no person has the right to obligate someone else to their survival, the same would apply to business. If a business has to force an individual to do business with them to maintain the business she would consider that wrong. If a business was damaging/confiscating/taking another's property without their consent, that would be what the judcial system is for.

 

[Mr.Fitnah]

Ayn Rand is perhaps one of the worst authors I've ever wasted my time on. I got through 3/4ths of the Fountainhead before I tossed the book where it belonged..the trash.

It's comforting to know that before she died..she, like many Americans, had to rely on SSI because she went broke due to Medical expenses.

The irony was thick with this one.

There is no evidence to support your lie, thank you for trolling

[

Not expecting an apology..but..

Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet
Ayn Rand, socialist | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Cynical-C | Ayn Rand Received Social Security

So she used the benefits the government had forced her family to pay for and that is your argument? she fought to get back what was taken and she was broke . sorry try again.

 

[JakeStarkey]

"you and your fellow right wing conservatives believe in a dog eat dog mentality and work diligently to assure that a smalll portion of the populace reap GREAT REWARDS while MILLIONS living in poverty"

What I believe, is that the above, like it or not, is human nature, and that ultimately, flying in the face of it with a political ideology is a futile enterprise. You can force people to behave otherwise, or at least pretend to; you cannot, however, make them like it. This is why communism failed (it cannot exist, without a tyranny to support it), and why socialism and liberalism, as advocated today, cannot long prevail in a democracy. The real world is dog eat dog, and most people, instinctively knowing that, live and act accordingly, regardless of what they say. Liberals know this as well as anyone (why else would they be so determined to silence or even eliminate their political opposition) and are just as ruthless in pursuit of power as anyone else, all their protestations of "unselfishness" to the contrary.

Captilism has brought more people up and out of poverty than any government program ever did. That's a proven fact, but then again Liberals ignore the facts. Clinton's end of welfare as we know it, propelled people out of the projects and into the middle class, you ask why? Because you either sink or you swim.

Capitalism and social democracy have been responsible for lifting the masses in western society from poverty. Stay complete, please.

 

[JakeStarkey]

There is no evidence to support your lie, thank you for trolling

[

Not expecting an apology..but..

Ayn Rand Railed Against Government Benefits, But Grabbed Social Security and Medicare When She Needed Them | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet
Ayn Rand, socialist | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Cynical-C | Ayn Rand Received Social Security

So she used the benefits the government had forced her family to pay for and that is your argument? she fought to get back what was taken and she was broke . sorry try again.

Fitnah, you lied, you got caught, tried to whine you way out of it with the above; you are just so typically you: a loser.

 

[8537]

Which if you will go back and watch the first part of the Mike Wallace interview that was posted you would see Rand opposses.

Well it's convenient she opposed it.

What as Ayn's strategy for handling it, short of blowing up the building?

While not addressed in the interview, my guess is that is what she would consider a valid use of a police force and judicial system. Just as (under her philosphy) no person has the right to obligate someone else to their survival, the same would apply to business. If a business has to force an individual to do business with them to maintain the business she would consider that wrong. If a business was damaging/confiscating/taking another's property without their consent, that would be what the judcial system is for.

No, that's not the harmed party I'm thinking of. A business can't really force you to participate in a transaction - but they can certainly harm others while you participate in the transaction.

 

[Bern80]

Well it's convenient she opposed it.

What as Ayn's strategy for handling it, short of blowing up the building?

While not addressed in the interview, my guess is that is what she would consider a valid use of a police force and judicial system. Just as (under her philosphy) no person has the right to obligate someone else to their survival, the same would apply to business. If a business has to force an individual to do business with them to maintain the business she would consider that wrong. If a business was damaging/confiscating/taking another's property without their consent, that would be what the judcial system is for.

No, that's not the harmed party I'm thinking of. A business can't really force you to participate in a transaction - but they can certainly harm others while you participate in the transaction.

Do have a 'for instance'?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Atlas Shrugged has been around for 50 years and hasn't changed anything

The only thing that's changed about Atlas Shrugged is the increase in the number of conservatives who claim they've read it.

 

[code1211]

By making everything bogger than life and exagerated in outcome, Rand demonstrates the conclusion that she is presenting.

I think that pretty much goes without saying. But the conclusion she is presenting is only made possible through those exaggerations, and that's my point. The real world, even our very politically polarized nation of today, does not exist in such pure absolutes. There is a nearly infinite ocean of gray in a constant state of changing flux which is a major stablizer in the world. At best, Rand shows that extreme positions lead to extreme results. And the irony is that by resorting to the extremes she did, she succumbs to the very thing her book should have warned us against. In the end, she moots her own message.

If you view her work and thinking from the cradle of today's insulated and stabalized USA, that might a resonable conclusion.

If you view her work and thinking from the perch of the 1950's assuming that you have witnessed a world in which governments dominated their populations and literally killed opposing view points, your conclusion is the one that becomes moot.

Even in the USA which is traditionally a pretty free wheeling economy, the control exerted by the Government was stifling as the prolonged Depression demonstrates amply. It is no accident that this trilogy of movies is seeing light now as opposed to the 90's.

If you really believe that the movers and the shakers might not continue to move and shake even when government is actively trying to stop them, you are probably confused that the American business community is sitting on Trillions of dollars of investment capital instead of investing it.

Atlas Shrugged.

 

[8537]

While not addressed in the interview, my guess is that is what she would consider a valid use of a police force and judicial system. Just as (under her philosphy) no person has the right to obligate someone else to their survival, the same would apply to business. If a business has to force an individual to do business with them to maintain the business she would consider that wrong. If a business was damaging/confiscating/taking another's property without their consent, that would be what the judcial system is for.

No, that's not the harmed party I'm thinking of. A business can't really force you to participate in a transaction - but they can certainly harm others while you participate in the transaction.

Do have a 'for instance'?

For instance, people who live next door to a petroleum refinery and face higher cancer rates.

 

[8537]

If you really believe that the movers and the shakers might not continue to move and shake even when government is actively trying to stop them, you are probably confused that the American business community is sitting on Trillions of dollars of investment capital instead of investing it.

Atlas Shrugged.

You believe the business community is sitting on trillions (it's not the business community, by the way, it's the financial sector) because they are removing themselves from society?

I'm pretty sure it's because they need the reserves and are being paid to hold them.

 

[washamericom]

Atlas Shrugged has been around for 50 years and hasn't changed anything

The only thing that's changed about Atlas Shrugged is the increase in the number of conservatives who claim they've read it.

well i guess the jig is up. you've foiled our 53 year old conspiracy to "trick the liberals of the left" into thinking we've actually read the book, and just before the movie came out... dammit.... we almost made it you guys... now what.... ?

oooh popcorn.

 

[gekaap]

You know, on a scarcely related note, when I read the book and imagined what it might look like on the big screen, I always saw Julia Stiles playing Dagny. And the nerdy son from That 70s Show as her brother.

 

[Bern80]

No, that's not the harmed party I'm thinking of. A business can't really force you to participate in a transaction - but they can certainly harm others while you participate in the transaction.

Do have a 'for instance'?

For instance, people who live next door to a petroleum refinery and face higher cancer rates.

And you think Rand would not have had a problem with that?

 

[8537]

Do have a 'for instance'?

For instance, people who live next door to a petroleum refinery and face higher cancer rates.

And you think Rand would not have had a problem with that?

I didn't ask you if she had a problem with it. I asked what her strategy would be for handling it.