• What next for Goldmans? 
Alex Brummer, The Jewish Chronicle Capitalism  Everyone concedes that Goldman is cleverer than most financial houses. But the belief was that, in its exploitation of free markets and the capitalism espoused by the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand, it overstepped the mark. In the pursuit of its own profits and survival the interests of clients were on occasion sacrificed to the interest of its own preservation.     Share on Facebook

• Defense of that scene in “The Matrix: Reloaded” 
Rob Wohl, Wesleyan Argus (Wesleyan U, Middletown, CT) [The Matrix] suggested that it would be possible to “free your mind,” to perceive the structures of domination, to elevate yourself above “normal” people who remain trapped in an illusion. This is the ideology of countless counter-revolutionary movements: religious mysticism, libertarianism, Leninist Vanguardism, Randian Objectivism, and many anarchists. These ideologies offer ready-made answers to pretty much all of life’s questions and promise to make their adherents enlightened beings who can impose their will on the remaining unenlightened “sheeple.” This sort of movement always fails, either by relying on individual (or small-scale) solutions to major collective problems or by reinstituting the same structures of domination with a new name attached.     Share on Facebook

• • Tea activists entitled to freedoms 
Rena Wetherelt, Missoulian (Missoula, MT) If you want to understand the human nature behind tyranny, read "Animal Farm" by George Orwell or "Philosophy: Who Needs It" by Ayn Rand. Both authors spent their lives trying to explain the horror of statism, by any name.     Share on Facebook

• • American atheists irreligiously united, politically divided 
Susan Jacoby, On Faith (Newsweek/Washington Post) Atheism  William Graham Sumner, professor of political science at Yale from 1872 to 1910, was the prototypical secular, right-wing public intellectual. He explicitly compared Gilded Age tycoons to superior biological species that had emerged from eons of evolution and declared emphatically that men like J.P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick were "a product of natural selection...just like the great statesmen, or scientific men, or military men." If all millionaires had emerged from fair competition, then they were best fitted to run society. (Sumner never addressed the question of whether the sons of tycoons were also superior by virtue of having been born to money.) Ayn Rand's turgid, didactic novels are nothing more than reheated Sumner.     Share on Facebook

• • • A comment on Stafford’s Ayn Rand commentary 
Sandra Fredericks, The Progress (Caldwell, NJ) Atlas Shrugged  Of course “Eyes Left” George Stafford [ April 15 issue] didn’t really understand Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” As a left of left liberal he couldn’t understand that she left Russia as the government started taking over everything in sight until they reached a Communist state. She fictionalized the story to make a point about “redistribution of wealth.”     Share on Facebook

• Six guys at a roundtable try solving the world’s problems 
Steve Barnes, Baxter Bulletin (Mountain Home, AR) We gather every so often to solve the world's problems, to remind one another that the world goes on: Bills have to be paid, jobs tended to, children bucked up and grandchildren indulged. Water heaters go kaput, cars break down. And the national debt goes up. [....] I suggest that Washington indulge in a bit of socialism, create a market in national debt futures and then tax on them, the proceeds earmarked for paying down the debt. "D—- good idea," responds one of the lawyers, whose specialty is — bonds. "Get Blanche to introduce it," the investment dude immediately replies. "Then she can vote against it." He was talking, of course, about Sen. Lincoln, who sometimes votes for and against things, depending on where the bill may be in the sausage factory. The biggest conservative at the roundtable, the broker doesn't like anybody in the Senate race because, he says, all of them are too liberal. A former congressional aide, amused, tells our Ayn Rand devotee that Lincoln was hardly the only member of Congress to go back and forth on the same piece of legislation. Mark Pryor, he notes, did it just the other day, on the health reform reconciliation. "Another liberal," the broker snorts.     Share on Facebook

• Put down the gadgets, and read 
Charles Boothe, Franklin News-Post (VA) Reading opened up worlds for me that I could never see or hear about in the hollow where I lived in the mountains. I was taken on journeys that helped me mature and gain a far better understanding of people and the world. From Charles Dickens to Herman Melville to Ayn Rand to Jean-Paul Sartre, I eventually made my way around the literary world.     Share on Facebook

• • April 24, 2010 
Lynne Rossetto Kasper, The Splendid Table - NPR Capitalism  Audio  (Relevant section begins at 35:25.)[Ayn Rand] was the person who believes the individual stands above society. The individual is the focus as opposed to the decisions made by many.     Share on Facebook

• • Community organizer’s plan is failing now, he says 
Scott Thomson, Pierce County Herald (Ellsworth, WI) Atlas Shrugged  A book written more than 50 years ago has found new readers, selling 500,000 copies in 2009, and continues to fly off the shelves. “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand is a great work of fiction making the author look like a prophet because it mirrors what is being forced on us today.     Share on Facebook

• Hot weather, cool shows: Summer concert preview 
Patrick Ferrucci, New Haven Register (CT) I know I’m supposed to be embarrassed for loving Rush. I know that even though movies like “I Love You, Man” have made the Canadian trio a little cooler, there’s still a stigma attached to totally digging a band that makes progressive rock with a drummer writing Ayn Rand-inspired lyrics. I get it, but I don’t care. I love Rush.     Share on Facebook

• • • Heller describes Rand as a ‘complex, contradictory character’ in her book 
Andrew Amelinckx, Register-Star Atheism  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Personal life  [Ayn Rand biographer Anne] Heller, a magazine editor and journalist, first began reading Rand after Suze Orman — the financial advisor and best-selling author — sent her a passage from “Atlas Shrugged” about money, as a way of illustrating the point of Orman’s essay that Heller was editing. “I’m not even sure if she is a fan of Rand,” Heller said of Orman. But the passage was enough to pique Heller’s interest. “The passage surprised me by defending limitless wealth in a way that was logical, original, complex, and, though somewhat overbearing, beautifully written,” stated Heller in her book’s preface.     Share on Facebook

• • • This is a real-life ‘Atlas Shrugged’ 
Marc Thomsen, Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL) Atlas Shrugged  I am nearing the end of a novel that was written in 1957 that is almost scary with regard to how similar the circumstances in the story are with what is happening today. The book is "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. [....] I understand it is a novel, a fictitious story, but if someone would have told you 10 years ago about the government taking over GM, or the IRS enforcing new health insurance compliance, or billions in new taxes based on faulty global warming science you would have thought it too was science fiction.     Share on Facebook

• Outside of society 
Matt Straw, Indiana Daily Student (Indiana U, Bloomington) Capitalism  We now live in a world where the “idealism” of Ayn Rand is considered as much a lofty ideal as John Lennon’s “Imagine” was. As though there isn’t enough self-absorbed, greedy capitalism in the world. That’s the dream, though, isn’t it? To never have to give a penny that may potentially help that deadbeat next door.     Share on Facebook

• • • Tea Party followers are ignorant 
Eva Knapp, Gazette-Mail (Charleston, WV) Altruism  Atheism  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Egoism  Inaccurate  Rand, a right-wing guru whose philosophy aligns with libertarian politics, is championed by Tea folks -- the very people she despised. (She characterized average people as "ugly, stupid and irrational," and denounced democracy as "a totalitarian manifestation.") She believed only "absolute individual freedom" separates superior beings from lesser ones, and only "free-market capitalism" rewards the cream of the crop -- all others deserve their lot. [....] Rand contended that selfishness is the highest moral good. Altruism is, in her words, "moral cannibalism." The worthy person "produces," makes money, and lives without regard for others. He stands alone -- contemptuous of government and lesser beings. Such is the "superman" John Galt in her novel "Atlas Shrugged," a hero Tea Partiers honor in their "Go Galt" slogan.     Share on Facebook

• Living in the limelight 
Sarah Liss, CBC “I think [Rush] didn’t connect with critics because they were perceived as being pretentious,” says [documentary co-director Sam] Dunn, “Because of fantastical lyrics, really long songs, complex time signatures. But I like that quote in the film from [drummer] Neil [Peart]: ‘We weren’t being pretentious! We weren’t pretending anything. This is what we’re into!’” That sincerity is a constant throughout the many stylistic swerves of Rush’s career, from their early days as grimy, Zeppelin-obsessed riff-rockers to purveyors of Objectivist-inspired progressive-rock epics to their flirtation with synthesizers in the ‘80s.     Share on Facebook

• Love God coaches single men 
Mark Barbeliuk, St George Sutherland Shire Leader (Australia) [Jeremy] Soul claims to have helped men of all ages, backgrounds and professions to reclaim their masculinity, improve their sex lives, find high-quality girlfriends and reignite the passion in their relationships. [....] “I draw inspiration from Taoist philosophy, business principles as well as authors such as Dale Carnegie and Ayn Rand,” he said.     Share on Facebook

• • Libertarianism 101: What’s the libertarian position on immigration? 
Garry Reed, The Examiner Harry Binswanger  In the America of Objectivist Ayn Rand there's open immigration for those who merely look different, talk funny, and dress weird, but closed borders for criminals, terrorists and carriers of infectious diseases. Government keeps those types out.     Share on Facebook

• Spiritual capitalism 
Nicholas Capaldi, The American Conservative Capitalism  Defenders of the liberal order have often unwittingly adopted the framework of their enemies, who in turn have defined liberalism by the silliest things that Jeremy Bentham, Ayn Rand, John Rawls, and Robert Nozick have said.     Share on Facebook

• • Bristol profile: Cathy Crohe 
Cate Murway, Bucks Local News (PA) [Crohe] shared her birthdate with author Ayn Rand (born Alice Rosenbaum 1905-1982) who conveyed an irresistible ferocity of convictions with her passionate and moralistic tone.     Share on Facebook

• • • BioShock: Theme 
Daniel Khalil, Associated Content The Fountainhead  Egoism  BioShock is such an interesting and intelligent game that one would be foolish not to give its sources a second glance. The mouth of the river that is the BioShock series just so happens to be Ayn Rand and her theories on objectivism. The game does not "borrow" any of her themes, however, but directly critiques them by displaying just how terribly greed ends up working for a government, society, and each person involved. One could say that BioShock takes some of Rand's books such as Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead, and puts their theories directly in motion. As it turns out, selfishness is not the way to make a society, as demonstrated by the demise of Rapture.     Share on Facebook