Ass Last Shrugged

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Does Ayn Rand matter?

The Major read both Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead in 1960s. He promptly forgot about both books.

The Hero of the Atlas Shrugged was John Galt, an individualistic architect who didn't want to conform to societal rules.

Wikipedia explains who John Galt is:

Galt is acknowledged to be a creator, philosopher, and inventor who symbolizes the power and glory of the human mind. He serves as a principled counterpoint to the collectivist social and economic structure depicted in the novel. The depiction portrays a society based on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture that embraces stifling mediocrity and egalitarianism, which the novel associates with socialistic idealism.

Rand wrote the novels as a counterpoint to FDR's New Deal , European Socialism and Russian collectivism.

Rand's work wasn't taken that seriously in the 1960s but today it is embraced by conservatives, particularly libertarians.

After the Great Depression, the Republicans were no longer the in-crowd who controlled government. The desperately wanted their control back.

One of the means the GOP used to get back into power was religion.

On of the people who helped Republicans was Abraham Vereide.

As Wikipedia notes:

The Fellowship also known as the family was founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR's New Deal. Initially headed by Fellowship Foundation traces its roots to its founder, Abraham Vereide, a Methodist clergyman and social innovator. Vereide was a Norwegian immigrant who founded Goodwill Industries in Seattle in 1916.

This secretive group is behind the National Prayer Breakfasts and supported by many conservative politicians. It even has a boarding house for conservative politicians in Washington.

In Newsweek, Lisa Miller wrote that The Family describes themselves as people brought together by common love for the teachings of Jesus and that all approaches to "loving Jesus" are acceptable.

In contrast, Jeff Sharlet, who was interviewed on NBC News and wrote a book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, and an article in Harper's about his experience serving as an intern in the Fellowship has a very different view of The family.

The family compares Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh,Bin Laden" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their "brothers".

The family views all of these men as special people who societal conventions do not apply to. This is very similar to Ayn Rand's libertarian ideas about John Galt.

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Obama Shrugged

January, 5, 2010 6:06 am  by Michael Hart

IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY at the great ball of burden on Obama’s back, you may discern the global energy problem; the global climate problem; the global arms trade problem; the global drug trade problem, the global security of nations problem, the global weapons of mass destruction problem;  the global problem of infectious disease;  the problem of global hunger and poverty.

Closer to home, you will notice our health care reform problem;  the two-wars-and-counting problem, followed closely by the war funding problem and the deficit problem and the financial regulatory problem;  the financial war on the middle class problem; the unemployment problem;  the immigration problem;  the great culture war problem;  the gays are not asked and they do not tell problem.

There’s also the growing problem of secular vs religion vs insane religion, and not last and not least, the plight of our poor problem.  What’s worse, each of these enumerated problems is merely shorthand for a variety of additional problems that cause, or flow from the central nexus of each of them.

So many problems, and at a time with increasingly fewer backs on which to lay the blame for them, even before they can be solved.  In America, it’s fashionable to place blame on only one particular back— in this case, a spiney collection of fortitude and faith that can ultimately seem liable to carry the blame for all our “back” problems:  the backside of our current president, Barack Obama.

Is Barack Obama a Titan? No, he is a man. Perhaps, he is one of the brightest men to be a US president in the last century. But a man can carry the whole world on his shoulders for only so long.  

source: http://www.urantiansojourn.com/2010/01/obama-shrugged/

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