Sales of "Atlas Shrugged" Soar

23 Comments

1. Wow! what an idea ! What a concept ! Beautiful .. Amazing ?

2. Jon Husband – You mean that it’s not sufficient to point out to them that Alan Greenspan – who apparently was the only person in the United States not to have recognized that a bubble in housing was forming years ago, and when he did begin to suspect that it was within the realm of possibility, didn’t bother to try to do anything about it because he figured there wasn’t anything he could do about it anyway – assuming it was really there to begin with, that is – that same Alan Greenspan was not merely a devotee of Ayn Rand’s theory of the sociopath as social savior, but one of her damned acolytes, following her around like a puppy ? She was one of the invited guests when Reagan hired him to head up the commission to “fix” social security, fix it real good.

   Or perhaps they still think Greenspan was the “maestro,” and you’d just be elevating the posturing moron to even higher status as one of easy Al’s familiars.

3. If one wishes to know what authoritative means look no further to the insanity of our medical-pseudo-scientific industry when it comes to one of the most important investigations into life itself and the many faceted interactions with health vs. disease…Oh and if you think your blood is sterile, think again, if you don’t think that your DNA doesn’t code for some viral components please wake up…we are not closed systems we are maintained open systems. How you are maintained is another question altogether!

   http://www.whale.to/a/b/pearson.html

4. Jon Husband, a more authorative source on what Ayn Rand means to the world would be working philosophers such as Roderick T. Long (http://aaeblog.com/) who actually keep track of the issues involving Ayn Rand. Your cut-n-paste is what we in the philosophy business call “bullshit copy.” He’ll be able to help you out with the minor issues. That’s his job. I bet he’d help you do what ever you think you’re doing.

   Btw, she did in fact extend our knowledge with her work on Identity. A actually is A. Just ask any Tao monk.

5. From a blog comment elsewhere on whether Ayn Rand should be considered a bona fide philosopher or not …

   “Ayn Rand is a minor US author, a lot of people read her novels in their teenage years then grow up. She doesn’t even appear in the Oxford references books on American Literature. She created a philosophy called objectivism which is pretty nasty (Chomsky called her evil) and based on unbridled pursuit of personal self interest. At a West Point lecture she basically said that Native Americans didn’t look after their property so got what they deserved. Some of her followers believe the current financial crisis is because of too much state regulation and the failure to bomb Iran. Now some sources, one US encyclopaedia of philosophy and various objecivist institutes call her a Philosopher so we have citable, authoritative material.

   However all other dictionaries and encyclopaedias of philosophy ignore her completely Now if someone is not called a philosopher in multiple places where you expect a reference, and if even objectivist philosophers basically say they like her political position but consider her at best an amateur/inadequate then what do you do? Just as hardly any serious scientist takes intelligent design seriously (other than as an ideological movement and political problem), no serious philosopher with the odd exception (several of whom are funded by Rand research institutes) considers Rand to be one of their number. Just to show how bad it is, she and some of her follows argue that she is the greatest philosopher since Aristotle and Kant the source of all evil in the world.

   So how do you prove a negative? I admit to a European incredulity at some of the ideas that have to be taken seriously by intelligent friends and colleagues who live and work in the US. Cultism seems to be an endemic danger there just as class based distinctions are in the UK. Normally you can tolerate the village idiot because everyone knows the idiot, no one takes them seriously and they are (with apologies to Douglas Adams) mostly harmless. However when the villiage idiots can assemble on line, and give apparent weight to blatant absurdities; what do you do?”

6. Wonderful Brother Mark;

   Hello,

   Psychologically how does one learn to love…through the process of being loved! How then can someone who lacks self apply consistently that which they never had. Tabula Rasa psychologically is not a new concept and is still debated. But I can assure you aside from some instincts and neural centers for language, math, sight, etc. there is probably not any real sense of complex emotional or behavioral memory or information. It is learned and modeled. Hence the shared commonalities in families overall. So imagine being raised in a ultra wealthy, power seeking, unlawful, criminal, selfless, sociopathic, political family…You can see the mirror in the laws and general function of or corporate and govt. creations. Not all. If it were Hell would be Earth already…

   Root Cause Analysis..

   http://www.shmula.com/433/hacking-at-branches-or-striking-at-the-root

   Imagine its application to govt. let’s see “there would not be one…the entire system is a failure in the lens of Root Cause Analysis. Even a simple application of Six Sigma would effectively remove the senate and congress most of the executive and really take the judicial through a perpetual Spring Cleaning.

   Speaking about Roots…A favorite site of mine

   “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil for every one striking at the root.” -Henry David Thoreau

   http://www.strike-the-root.com/

7. Selfishness is required for Empathy. Empathy is the Emanation of the Self. Only by knowing the Self can with know the Other. The Other is another Self. There is nothing but the Self for any of us. Think “mirror neurons” and such.

8. Yes Ed its original alright. In fact the first part was posted on Catherine’s “Ten reasons not to bailout Wall Street” article.
   And Yes Angela please forward to anyone you like. It would really make my day.
   People need to wake up.. What better way than music…?

   God Bless

9. Kevlar Floss,
   Can forward and your song to everyone in my address book?!
   I know a few good musicians, too~

10. This would be the perfect time for everyone to read, or re-read, The Future of Money by Bernard Leitaer, the Belgian economist who has been teaching at US universities for many years and who was a world-leading currency trader and a founder of the European monetary system. Lietaer has much to say about complementary currencies in hard times, including Depression-era US and Germany.

11. Kevlar Floss

    The Bush Fired Ballad

    Yeah, wakin’up in four years time with shackles on our feet

    So lets talk straight, its from our sweat that keeps these fleas in feed
    Our lives of debt pursuing what we’re told to think we need (that most believe by choice)
    Lets ditch these wanks, form our own banks…

    Loved it, I’m assuming it is original !

    You could have had a part on the Firefly show that was canceled !

    http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=firefly&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#q=ballad+of+serenty&hl=en&emb=0&start=10

    Don’t know if any of your are ready for any of this but

    http://www.worldfreemansociety.org/WFS/Welcome.html

    http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

12. #

    The Bush Fired Ballad..(sung to the tune of the beverly hillbillies)

    The Anti-Terror Laws are here to serve us well
    To wipeout the insurgencies
    To stem the huge groundswell
    of public opinion thats bound to overspill
    And washout all the parasites up there on Capitol Hill

    Well Georgie rang up Tony,Tony rang up John
    They came to the conclusion that ole Saddam had bomb
    We don’t have any proof of it, but hey who gives a f***
    We’ll tell the average sucker that he built it in a truck

    Bush promoted Colin to put some spin on it
    A man who preferred ‘Colon’,oh man that kinda fits
    He took it to the world stage to make it all look good
    Murdoch gave him prime time slots and the keys to Hollywood

    So meanwhile back in Baghdad the party it began
    They’re comin to free Iraq with an almighty plan
    They call it ‘Shock n Awe’old friend, it’s bound to be a hit
    We never thought they’d try so hard to turn our lives to s**t

    Well now we got no plumbing or electricity
    The USA is here for good, thank Allah that we’re free
    BUT those infidels have Iris Scans, they’ve filed their DNA
    We might be screwed, but those poor fools are yet to have their day

    So the oil is really flowing, the Heroin’s more pure
    We all wait on the stockmarket to provide us with a cure
    To the ailment that we all possess, so common to our breed
    The intoxicating ecstacy of true unbridled greed

    So George is gonna hang his hat, he’s done the best he could
    Its now up to some wannabe to walk us through the woods
    The Bush was workin in God’s name to save our liberties
    But all the while ole Freddie Mac gave Fannie a disease

    The Emperor’s new clothes were made to do the will of God
    So I’m votin for McCain,again,I’m givin him the nod
    It’s not because he’s vowed to get this monkey off our back
    The things that stand out most for me is Sarah Palin’s rack

    The anti-Terror laws are surely here to stay
    Just in case our citizens decide to run away
    You never know how bad things are until it’s time to pay
    The ferrymen have left the boat
    The anchor’s cut-away

    We’re all prayin’for good karma, now we got Barack Obama
    We’ll smoke his hope like dope, he is our brand new Dalai Lama
    The change we needed now so we can all go back to sleep
    Wakin’up in four years time in crap thats twice as deep

    Yeah, wakin’up in four years time with shackles on our feet

    So lets talk straight, its from our sweat that keeps these fleas in feed
    Our lives of debt persuing what we’re told to think we need
    Lets ditch these wanks, form our own banks, tell Ayn Rand where to go
    And if Atlas shrugs, we’ll pull the plug that made the bastard grow.

    Yeah, till paint starts peeling from them boats we’ve seen in Monaco.

13. Hi

    lee vardi,

    Like your approach conceptually or theoretically…

    ‘All it takes is determined people led by someone who can mobilize the paradigm shift into action’

    A huge problem with what you have outlined is thus…LED BY SOMEONE…if the population as a whole reflected your sentiment you would not NEED, WANT, REQUIRE anything remotely nearing LED, the SHIFT would have happened…Until the HUMAN species as a whole takes the cognitive ‘next leap’ in abstract thought-problem solving-critical thinking-supra awareness…The minority will be suffered by the majority in this manipulated game/ system. Catherine actually exhibit’s Rand’s rational selfishness…When she was at HUD and saw the criminal-illegal-immoral-unethical-clogged shadowed bureaucratic system, she attempted to do something, in the process enriching herself and those around-loyal to her. She used her creative and intelligent senses to develop process to undermine and revolutionize how common folk understand what is happening and do something about what it is that is happening world wide…

    Hi

    Karin Maya,

    It is easier said then done but…”Fear is the Mind Killer…do not fear” Dune

    If you have not already…take the appropriate steps to becoming very familiar with weapons use, have a reliable hand-gun, and be not be afraid or convinced that your not responsible for your and your neighbors defense, life, liberty and pursuit of criminals. 🙂

    P.S. Interesting to see what the ultimate outcome of President Chavez’s visions hold…

    http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29744.shtml

    Catherine out to send him some info. about Popsicle index 🙂

    I don’t know if Catherine has a link to this site but I get good info. from here that is intelligent ‘mostly’…

    http://globalresearch.ca/

14. “We should all be terrified of what this could lead to. I know I am.”

    I would be horrendously terrified if it wasn’t for Catherine and all those listening and working with her.I have been following Catherine’s work for about 6 years now and i still swing like a pendulum into fear now and then. I accept this and don’t allow myself to dwell there long. What I notice now that the hammer is starting to come down on us is there is a calmness I never expected to have. No everything is not in perfect order for me. I always have more to do, but there are those around me that understand what’s going on and are doing things to better our world. I hope you have this too.

15. Let us, as a collective, get selfish about creating the most beautiful lifestyle we can imagine. Let go of the win/lose concept and embrace the win/win whereby we all prosper and uplift each other to great heights and benefit from the success of all. Historically all societal evolution is as a result of cooperation and working together. Its a conciousness thing…its simple. Encourage each other to be the best and help those who fall along the way to get up…..if you do…they will get up and contribute…….and one more thing………..remove the exploiters whether they be small or big……..create a transparency where there is nowhere for them to hide….shine a light into the shadows where they hide and exploit….EXPOSURE is the key…..support the “whistleblowers”…give them genuine protection….and allow the truth to come out….THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE…THE TRUTH SHALL SET US ALL FREE…….All it takes is determined people led by someone who can mobilize the paradigm shift into action….BARRY may be the man…If he’s not …find someone who is…..ITS THAT SIMPLE

16. My understanding is that Rand was a New World Order insider and Atlas Shrugged is a road-map for the elites. No surprise that Greenspan loved her.

    The outcomes set forth in the book are intentional and beneficial to the elites. Economic ruin enables wealth to be transfered to insiders more rapidly than in a steady-state. Moral ruin… well, I don’t think they care about that too much. And as for a dumbed-down population, anyone reading Solari can see how beneficial that is to the general looting of the world right out in the open.

17. I recently re-read Atlas Shrugged after so many years. Just compare the news headlines (from virtually any source) with the social and political environment she describes. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Rand was a keen observer of human nature. She clearly shows us that if we allow our leaders to first dumb us down and then to use greed and envy to divide and conquer us, it will eventually lead to economic and moral ruin and the end of our country as we know it. I wasn’t prepared to be as shocked at how prescient this book really is. Things are not so different now as described in the book. We are rapidly descending into the world she describes in the final chapters. We should all be terrified of what this could lead to. I know I am. That’s my $0.02 worth.

18. Thanks Catherine and Ed!! I will take a deeper look at Ayn Rand and her work. Incidentally, the Dalai Lama describes someone as “intelligently selfish” who recognizes their interdependence with all existence. Is Rand talking about this? I hope so… I shall see.

19. Greg:

    Hi please read

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfishness

    Now if that is a definition of selfishness you are referring to then a deeper more emotional/ cognitive exploration would realize that one who is truly selfish insures that the people around them are well because that facilitates their wellness, the food they eat is very healthy…sustainable and organic, lie and steal only in life threatening situations otherwise those around them would cease interactions making life more difficult. We read or understand definitions by those who agree they should exist for the masses. Think deeply in your formal abstract range and you’ll see it is those that are sociopaths or psychopaths that you are referring to. Besides Ayn Rand promoted a selfishness referred to as: rational or healthy selfishness. Fountainhead is a better book in my opinion. People who a selfish are motivated to improve, advance, be better than others…selfless people are the ones that allowed those in power to maintain power and corrupt that power.Most people you encounter that you may believe are selfish are really not anything but environmentally programed clones that are not very conscious or cognitive…just stimulated for their next football/baseball game, sitcom, hit, sex, night-out, church experience…

20. Greg:

    Atlas Shrugged is a useful book, particularly for understanding what is happening in Washington right now. I would recommend you read it and judge for yourself.

    Catherine

21. I don’t get why Ayn Rand is being hyped by Solari. Isn’t she the one who taught us all to be selfish individuals and not notice or interpendence with the entire infiverse? Wasn’t she used to justify the “Regan Revolution”? Someone please enlighten me, thanks!

22. Interesting Tip, thanks.
    I’ll review the cliff notes from our city library. I’m reading Reinventing collapse : the Soviet example and American prospects by Dmitry Orlov as Solari Report recommended.

    Crossing the Rubicon : the decline of the American empire at the end of the age of oil by Michael C.Ruppert, with your forword was an early read in my grasping for the real map.

    I agree with your focus on movies to provide the reality-ism that we need to GET THE REAL MAP into our perspective. Both resources are providing value.

    Regards,
    Brad

23. After reading Lawrence Reed’s “Great Myths of the Great Depression”, Rand’s description of government interference with private business seems less like dystopian fiction and more like lightly fictionalised reporting.

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