Cunningham writes: "I was drawn to Ayn Rand because her politics are almost exactly the opposite of my own. I tend to take the side of the underdog and I have a keen sense of injustice. She cared little for those crushed under the wheels of capitalism and considered economic failure to be your own fault if it happened to you."
Ayn Rand's influence spans 60 years, with Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) among her notable acolytes and devotees. (photo: Barnes & Noble Review)
Why Ayn Rand Is Still Relevant (and Dangerous)
01 November 14
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Hers is the spirit of the age: the age of selfishness. An age of greed, financial crime, and indifference to the poor, sick, and disabled.
can�t remember how I first came across Ayn Rand. I know I was already aware of Rand when news broke of her death in 1982. This suggests that I was a teenager when I initially came across the First Lady of Logic. Back then I was dimly aware that she had some dubious political views and was a hate figure to those on the left, but beyond that I knew nothing. Yet, she�s gone on to have a profound influence on me, not because I share her philosophy, but because I don�t.
I was drawn to Ayn Rand because her politics are almost exactly the opposite of my own. I tend to take the side of the underdog and I have a keen sense of injustice. She cared little for those crushed under the wheels of capitalism and considered economic failure to be your own fault if it happened to you. To help another just for the sake of it with no benefit to yourself, was in her eyes, a moral weakness. She developed a whole philosophy � the philosophy of Objectivism, in order to justify her own selfishness and contempt for the needy.
Rand is little known in Europe, but in the States, 30 years after her death, she still has a huge following. Her books, especially Atlas Shrugged, sell in their thousands. Top businessmen and politicians name her as an influence. Objectivism is a very convenient philosophy if you�re someone who venerates your own needs over everyone else�s.
My book on the 2008 financial crisis, Supercrash, starts with Ayn Rand. I wanted to write about Rand, because I felt if I could understand her, I could get to the heart of what has gone wrong in Western politics over the past three decades, and at the same time, define my own beliefs more thoroughly.
Ayn Rand�s hand in the 2008 financial crisis, through her influence on the chair of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, has been well documented. Rand was Greenspan�s mentor in the years before he reached high office when he completely bought the Objectivist line, that the free market was entirely good and government regulation entirely bad. As a result, his zero touch approach to mortgage and banking regulation led directly to the financial crisis. He felt, as Rand did, that business could regulate itself more effectively than any government could. After all, banking CEOs were hardly likely to destroy their own businessess, were they? In short, Greenspan took his hands off the steering wheel, allowing the car to veer off a cliff.
Rand�s fear of government control stemmed from her youthful experiences in Russia during the revolution. She was born in Saint Petersburg in the early years of the 20th century and emigrated to the US in the 1920s. She�d seen the horrors of totalitarianism first hand, and she forever-after associated government regulation, no matter how benign, to be a sign of creeping communism. She saw how her father�s business had been appropriated by the Bolsheviks, "for the good of the people". This, in her view, was altruism being used as a cover for theft. It marked the beginning of her distrust of altruism as a concept and her embracing of selfishness as a virtue.
In Rand�s philosophy an individual�s needs matter more than the needs of the majority, taxation is theft, and the welfare system should be allowed to wither away (along, presumably, with the poor).
So a world of low taxes, low business regulation, welfare state rollback, and government reduced only to matters of policing and the military, while all else is farmed out to giant corporations, is a world Rand would much approve of. If this picture looks familiar, it�s because it�s the world that those on the political right have been moving us towards for the last thirty years.
All of the above shows us why Ayn Rand is still relevant. Hers is the spirit of the age: the age of selfishness. An age of greed, financial crime, and indifference to the poor, sick, and disabled. Where most work harder for less and a tiny percentage of people at the top of society own the majority of all wealth.
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Springtime may come to the US after all.
Obama or Nobama.
-- we've already got a pack of pet dogs, they're called the EU
V.M.Mohanraj
It's possible that the real value of Snowdens leaks are the revelations during the political aftermath- and isn't it possible that he knows this?
The US, Canada, NATO & Israel Finance-Media-M ilitary-Industr ial Complex are arming dissidents in over 80 countries worldwide for the purposes of war & resource acquisition. 40% of our export economies are tied to arms, munitions & security. We are making a killing worldwide through a generally held religious belief in confrontation & biblical armageddon.
Russia, China & the world's non-aligned nations are becoming increasingly concerned about our death-spiral economy bringing the whole world to economic & ecological collapse. Libya is a point of horror, with mainstream media never inquiring or reporting about Libya's role as Africa's #1 development aid investor & donor as well as instigator of irrigation, satellite, universal health-care, employment & education.
Libya's leadership in implementing the African gold-based Dinar as a challenger to US Dollar dominance caused the FMMIC to bomb 40 years of popular Libyan development. 3 Nobel Peace Prize laureates gave their support to Muammar Gaddafi & Libya's Green Party's national & international labours, yet our FMMIC media was completely one sided & the popular mind carries lies unquestioned. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/1-converting-social-media-from-mono-to-dialogue
agree - look at Libya now and see how the scenarios of New World Order will play out - destruction and civil war - of course mass media are now quiet when the destruction of Libya is completed ...
All the world's warmongers are the sons of the profits.
The key indicators of vicious populations are how much per capita is dependent upon war & death. My own analysis when components (eg. electronics / digital etc) & raw materials are properly calculated is that seemingly innocent Canadian corporations are the biggest players (per capita) in the world. I don't say this with pride, but with alarm because they are making a killing silently & no press is reporting on them. This includes Canadian workers who are making their killing & feeding their families on death. When Whistleblowers such as Manning, Snowden & Assange are risking their lives to save the world, Canadian war, mining, logging, depleted uranium, engineering firms, electronics (eg CAE), aircraft, component manufacturing etc corporations are making a killing as well as destroying the biosphere. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/relational-economy/7-canada-1-war-mongeror
Thank you Mr Putin
luvdoc
"You are mean! I'm taking my balls, and going home!"
these AIPAC drones like Scumer are looking more and more pathetic
Clearly, what Snowden did was a whistleblower action. The information released was of little consequence other than to expose the extent to which NSA is abusing its surveillance powers. That NSA is abusing its authority to spy on American citizens is beyond doubt. The exposure of this abuse is nothing more than an embarrassment to the administration that has no impact on national security. By any other name, government abuse is abuse. It is surprising that on the one hand, the government promotes whistleblowing on waste, fraud and abuse, but on the other hand goes to extremes to prosecute anyone who blows the whistle. Who is rewarded and who is punished for whistleblowing is primarily determined not by merit but by politics.
There is no doubt that Snowden could not receive a fair trial in the U.S. and that he would become a political victim if returned to the U.S. Many of us don't want to see that happen.
If I were Russian I would give up on the US and turn my interests to the SCO and BRICS. The SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and the BRICS nations are the future of the world. They not only include most of the world's people, but they are nations that have left the old concepts of colonialism behind. Europe and the US are still stuck in the colonialism/imp erialism phase of national development. both of these are grounded in ideas of racial or national supremacy.
Cole is much too skeptical of Putin. Putin is smart and honest. He knows the US intends no good for any nation on earth, particularly Russia. He knows the US is run by pyschopaths like Obama, Cheney, and Bush. No one can deal with psychopaths.
Snowden has a human right to asylum in a nation which will protect him from the illegal punishment by the government of his home state. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that if the US can get its hands on Snowden, he will be tortured and subject to a kangaroo trial just like Manning. Snowden will spend the rest of his life in prison and will be tortured there.
Russia is categorically right to protect Snowden. All of the pissing and moaning from people like McCain or Graham should be ignored. That is what they always do. They are irrelevant. The law is on Putin's side.
The U.S. corporate-fasci st, "Fourth Reich" national "security", totalitarian militarized police state die is cast; and, as far as the psychopaths who run the U.S. government are concerned, Snowden has to be taken down completely, like Manning was. It's all almost over but the next kangaroo "espionage" trial of Snowden, and who knows who else next. A great many of us, it very much looks like. Certainly all those who seek to save the U.S., that's likely. And, in addition to opening up the "new" concentration camps they've built all over the fifty states, they'll get rid of all the real criminal prisoners, and lock up the dissenters in the maximum security "SHU" prisons as well.