US midterms: essential reading for the budding Tea Party activist

The Telegraph ^ | 10/25/2010 | Alex Spillius

[bruinbirdman]

A cult 1957 novel that foresees a dystopian United States where the government seizes control has become required reading for conservatives and Tea Party activists.

Sales of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, the Russian-American philosopher and writer, have soared as fears have grown among Right-wingers that Barack Obama is driving the country towards European-style socialism. Sales in 2009 were 500,000+.

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Russian born and educated author of popular novels, espoused her philosophy
of Objectivism, an extreme individualism. Her best known novels are We, the Living, (1936),
The Fountainhead (1943), and Atlas Shrugged (1957).

Leading conservative figures such as broadcasters Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have cited the book as a parable for modern times.

John Campbell, a Republican congressman, said: "People are starting to feel like we're living through the scenario that happened in [the novel]... We're living in Atlas Shrugged."

Ron Paul, the Texas congressman and so-called grandfather of the Tea Party, has described the 1,200-page novel as "telling the truth".

Elan Journo, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, said: "In the land of the free, 'czars' are rampant, the administration has fired corporate CEOs, the government is expanding its control over the banking system and spending trillions on handouts and bailouts. People seeking to understand this upheaval are turning to Atlas Shrugged in large numbers."

Hitherto popular with a small sub-culture of conservative intellectuals, it has emerged at the forefront of even more obscure texts that are popular with the pro-small government movement that has transformed US politics in the past 18 months.

Those include Frédéric Bastiat's "The Law," published in 1850, which asserted that taxing the public to pay for schools or roads was government-sanctioned theft, and "Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek

[DesScorp]

Yup, reading it right now myself... though it’ll take forever.

[bruinbirdman]

"... though it’ll take forever"

For a simplified Ayn Rand, you might check your library for The Letters of Ayn Rand by Ayn Rand, Michael S. Berliner, and Leonard Peikoff.

Yep, her own non-fiction correspondence, an insight to the chronological Rand. An easy read.

yitbos

[WVNan]

Yep, reading it right now. Had intended to read it most of my life, but it is a daunting read for shear size. Good writing, and extremely eerie because it is dead-on what is going on right now. Talk about prophesy...

[Don W]

More recent is "The 5000 Year Leap", self-published in 1981 by Cleon Skousen, an anti-communist crusader who believed that the country's founding fathers were Christians first and foremost and had not intended to separate church and state, although the constitution they contributed to ended up doing so. It is theory commonly espoused at Tea Party rallies.

Don't you love it when the ignorant try to espouse their infinite knowledge of things they obviously know nothing about?

The first amendment is there to protect the citizens, press AND religion from the depredations and preferences of the state.

ANY other interpretation is not only wrong, but an admission of stupidity by its professors!

[Slings and Arrows]

“Cult?”

[bicyclerepair]

Interesting, the author says the TEA party is using Alinsky’s book. That oughta tick off the lefties huh?

[ccmay]

If you don’t care for the story and just want to get to the meat of her philosophy, read Francisco d’Anconia’s “Money Speech” and then John Galt’s radio address at the end of the book. One or two short evenings of reading will cover it.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Slings and Arrows]

I can hear Alinsky spinning in his grave.

[Vincent Jappi]

Note that the condescending Mr Spillius refers to “Atlas shrugged” as “obscure”, as he apparently doesn’t know that the only book Americans have read more extensively than “Atlas shrugged” is the Bible.

Unfortunately for him, he is not likely to go so far as actually READING the book, which night have taught him one thing or two.

For his attitude tells all about the people he meets, and the opinions he is familiar with, in the United States as indeed, elsewhere.

Doesn’t he know that Margaret Thatcher used to quote Hayek, while Reagan referred to Bastiat???
Some “journalist”.

[Explorer89]

Also required reading: the hobo’s story to Dagny about what really happened to the 20th Century Motor Corp.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Interesting, the author says the TEA party is using Alinsky’s book. That oughta tick off the lefties huh?"

Successful tactics are successful tactics. I'm sure the US army learned from the Germans and the Soviets (and vice versa). Best is to study the enemy's successful tactics and come up with BETTER ones.

[DesScorp]

CC, actually, I LIKE the story thus far... it’s actually a good book. The problem is that Rand uses 12 pages of mental monologue when 1 or 2 would do. She’s a bit, shall we say, long winded. I bet she liked to hear herself talk. So I really look forward to the actual story details once I make it through all of the gabbing.

[bruinbirdman]

"I'm sure the US army learned from the Germans and the Soviets "

The U.S. Naval Academy teaches a course in "Cultural Marxism". In particular it emphasizes What Is The Frankfurt School?

yitbos

[Wonder Warthog]

Good link. I knew bits and pieces of this, but this ties things together pretty well. My wife and I (both PhD chemists) have crossed paths with folks sellling "critical theory" before. As scientists we know that it is simply ludicrous, and unsupportable in the real world, but the "fantasy sciences" (psychology, sociology, "feminist studies" and their ilk) lap it up like a cat does cream.

[bruinbirdman]

" "fantasy sciences" (psychology, sociology, "feminist studies" and their ilk) lap it up like a cat does cream. "

Unfortunately, the fantasists spin a powerful yarn.

This lecture by Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson CDR USN (Ret.) is one of several I have seen from the Naval Academy.

This one identifies the Frankfurt School and some of its evolution in particular into the U.S.A.

I read one that identified the why the school got together in the first place? Two big reasons.

Psychiatry was in its infancy. For an individual psychiatrist to become successful, he had to differentiate himself from the others.

After the Communist Revolution failed to spread worldwide as Marx predicted, Communist psychiatrists were not in great demand.

They met as The Frankfurt School to find out why The Revolution failed to spread. Or why it failed.

What was not made obvious in this essay was their conclusion, apologia. The evolution of Capitalism was so complete, it had become a part of human nature (culture). They resolved to change human nature. (Hillary Clinton made such a pronouncement in answer to a townhall meeting years ago. The reference has been purged from the internet.) They resolved that for Communism to succeed worldwide the stalwart needed to change the human capitalist culture in the great bastions of free enterprise.

yitbos yitbos

[bruinbirdman]

For an exercise in an individual German communist psychiatrist's influence in the west today, investigate Rudolf Steiner and his schools. Or, Montessori is close.

yitbos

[Wonder Warthog]

Again, thanks for the good info. A topic of interest for me to do a bit of digging into (in my copious spare time, of course). Like all things related to Communism, these things work only in the fantasy world of the mind......not in the real one of physics and engineering. That dropped ball will fall at the same rate whether the person who dropped it is male, female, feminist, misogynist, black, white, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or anything else. Their “worldview” has nothing to do with it.