• • • Ayn Rand USA: In 20 Years Corporate Profits Are Up 4X and Their Taxes Have Fallen by 50% 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" fantasizes a world in which anti-government citizens reject taxes and regulations, and "stop the motor" by withdrawing themselves from the system of production. In a perverse twist on the writer's theme the prediction is coming true. But instead of productive people rejecting taxes, rejected taxes are shutting down productive people.  

• • The Rich Have Gained .6 Trillion in the 'Recovery,' While the Rest of Us Have Lost 69 Billio 
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Capitalism  | It's as if the entire economic recovery is going into the pockets of the rich. And that's no accident. Here's why. [....] 8. The rise of the Ayn Rand Right. The Tea Party brought a new viciousness to the national dialogue. Not only do they hate the government, but also, they hate the poor. Using the twisted logic of Ayn Rand, they see the world divided into winners and losers -- and screw the losers. Not only do they oppose social programs like Social Security and Medicare, they also don’t believe that government should work on behalf of the collective good. In fact, they see any and all collective efforts as an affront to personal liberty. They want a world where the creators rule and the moochers suffer. They would rather the rich rob us blind, than have the government try to stop the financial cheating and deception. If Wall Street destroys your job -- too bad. Go get another one and don’t expect the government to help.  

• • • ‘Free Market’ Ayn Rand Ideology Was a Root Cause of the Horrific Explosion in Texas 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | John Galt is a very busy guy, sowing death and destruction from one side of the country to the other. But since he continues to make good money, we have to give him his freedom and keep those markets wide open.  

• • • The Southern State Fast Becoming Ayn Rand’s Vision of Paradise 
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Altruism  |Atlas Shrugged  |Egoism  |Paul Ryan  |Rand Paul  | If you’re worried about where America is heading, look no further than Tennessee. Its lush mountains and verdant rolling countryside belie a mean-spirited public policy that only makes sense if you believe deeply in the anti-collectivist, anti-altruist philosophy of Ayn Rand. It’s what you get when you combine hatred for government with disgust for poor people. [....] In the Randian universe, it’s not enough to starve public education and the poor. You also must blame the poor both for their poverty and for the crumbling educational system. If a poor child is failing it must be the fault of low-income parents. So how do you drive the point home? You take away their welfare checks if their kids don’t do well in school, which is precisely what the Tennessee House and Senate are about to do.  

• • • Welcome to Ayn Rand Planet: Why the Rich Prosper from the Stock Market While We Get Screwed 
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Alan Greenspan  |Altruism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Paul Ryan  |Rand Paul  |Image  | This morning I received an email blast form Amazon. It was pushing The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, the old and new testament of the Ayn Rand nation, which includes much of the Tea Party and its Republican allies.

How appropriate to be promoting Ayn Rand books just as the stock market and corporate profits both reached record highs. How appropriate to think of the infamous John Galt withdrawing from society in comfort while the rest of us face high unemployment, oppressive student loans, increasing healthcare costs, upside-down mortgages, and declining real incomes. But, according to Rand's philosophy, this is as it should be -- the wealthy getting all the rewards while the rest of us get nothing.  

• Corporate Food Giants Have Reason to Worry—Some Very Brave Supermarkets Are Sharing Nutritional S 
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Egoism  | The idea that a food store would admit -- would explicitly declare, on the spot, as your hand is reaching for it -- that a product it's selling is nutritionally crappy: that violates every principle of Marketing 101, not to mention Ayn Rand 101.  

• • • Republicans Fulfill Their Cruel Ayn Rand Obsession With the Sequester 
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Alan Greenspan  |Atlas Shrugged  |Paul Ryan  |Personal life  | Ayn Rand, whose white supremacist views were woven throughout her writing, attracted a band of towering intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s who felt increasingly out of touch with an America that was diversifying in every single way.  

• • Noam Chomsky Slams America’s Selfish Ayn Randian Elites 

Egoism  |Video  | In an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera English, Noam Chomsky argues that people who have the most privilege owe the most to society. "The more privilege you have the more responsibility you have," says Chomsky, "It's elementary." [....] Chomsky [says] that the lack of public responsibility among many elites makes sense; after all, if you've devoted your life to enriching yourself and wealth is what you value the most, you don't care as much about other people. But it goes beyond that, argues Chomsky. "It's also institutional. In its more pathological form, it's Ayn Rand ideology: 'I just don't care about anyone else. I'm only interested in benefiting myself. That's good and noble. It's responsibility to yourself. You're maximizing your own short-term gain."  

• • • The Cultists Lose Their Minds After Barack Obama Says Ayn Rand is for Teenagers 
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Capitalism  |Egoism  |Nathaniel Branden  | The election’s tight, so the racket is to yell “we’re winning” in a loud voice till the votes are counted. (And if you have a little lung power left over, bitch about the liberal media.) We that have free souls, it touches us not, and we take our pleasures where we can. I’m enjoying the brethren’s reaction to Obama’sRolling Stone interview -- especially the Ayn Rand bit.  

• • Ayn Rand Would Be Proud: Soup Kitchen in Paul Ryan's Photo Op Loses Funds, Gets Attacked By Cons 
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Last weekend, Paul Ryan demonstrated his compassion for the poor by rolling up his sleeves at an Ohio soup kitchen and faking a photo op. [....] It's almost as if Ryan has staged an elaborate tribute to Ayn Rand, whose philosophy denigrates people who help the needy [...].  

• • • Romney’s in a Cult and Ryan’s a Satanist? The GOP’s 2012 Religion Woes 
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Altruism  |Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Paul Ryan  | When controversy surfaced over his past praise for Ayn Rand's ideas (which in 2005 Ryan credited as inspiring his decision to go into politics) Paul Ryan spoke out, denouncing Rand's atheism but little else.  

• • • Paul Ryan's Biggest Influence: 10 Things You Should Know About the Lunatic Ayn Rand 
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Alan Greenspan  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Paul Ryan  |Personal life  |Image  |Inaccurate  |Syndicated  | AlterNet has kept the pace with Rand’s resurgence, doing our best to educate people about what a nutcase she was and how harmful her ideas are. These 10 articles, previously published on AlterNet, shed light on why Rand’s influence on Ryan is so dangerous.  

• • The 5 Most Awful Atheists 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  | [Ayaan] Hirsi Ali notoriously received death threats for writing the screenplay to Submission, the documentary which inspired the assassination of its director Theo van Gogh, and her ridiculous objectivist spin on this tragedy was nothing short of shameful: “[The killer] was on welfare....he had the time to plot a murder, which in the United States he would not be.”  

• • The New Yorker’s Terrifying Profile of Ayn Rand-loving Paul Ryan 

Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |Going Galt  |Individualism  |Paul Ryan  | The whole article is interesting, but this is key: “His father’s death also provoked the kind of existential soul-searching that most kids don’t undertake until college. “I was, like, ‘What is the meaning?’ ” he said. “I just did lots of reading, lots of introspection. I read everything I could get my hands on.” Like many conservatives, he claims to have been profoundly affected by Ayn Rand. After reading “Atlas Shrugged,” he told me, ‘I said, “Wow, I’ve got to check out this economics thing.” What I liked about her novels was their devastating indictment of the fatal conceit of socialism, of too much government.’”  

• • • Ayn Randroids and Libertarians Join Forces: Will Her Noxious Philosophy Further Infect America? 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |John Allison  |Yaron Brook  | John Allison, a former bank CEO and a leader of the Rand movement, has just become president of the influential Cato Institute. This received only a modest amount of attention when it surfaced late last month, and you had to be a real political junkie to even be aware of it. But it is a seminal event in recent political history—a dramatic indication of the mainstreaming of the radical right.  

• • Fifty Shades of Capitalism: Pain and Bondage in the American Workplace 
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Capitalism  | If the ghost of Ayn Rand were to suddenly manifest in your local bookstore, the Dominatrix of Capitalism would certainly get a thrill thumbing through the pages of E.L. James’ blockbuster Fifty Shades of Grey.  

• • 11 Ways Mitt Romney Shows His Rich-Guy, Ayn Randian Cluelessness 
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Capitalism  | I've collected a smattering of evidence of Romney's Ayn Rand game plan, listed below, which actually wasn't all that hard, since former Romney primary opponents Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry did much of the work for me.  

• • • Conservatives Are Hitting Rock Bottom 
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Capitalism  |Egoism  |Paul Ryan  |Image  | Modern American conservatism has forgotten its rich legacy and betrayed its best traditions. It has become infected with a virulent strain of extreme libertarianism heavily influenced by the thinking of Ayn Rand. [....] The list of GOP-elected officials and candidates who have heaped praise upon Rand and her philosophy is too long to enumerate. Even worse, Rand’s influence can also be seen in major Republican policy initiatives - such as, for example, Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposals.  

• • How the Ayn Rand-Loving Right Is Like a Bunch of Teen Boys Gone Crazy 
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Make no mistake: all this Ayn Rand libertarian me-first-and-the-rest-of-you-go-to-hell stuff -- the there’s-no-government-like-no-government theology that’s now being piously intoned as Holy Received Truth by everybody, male and female, in the GOP -- is, very precisely, the kind of politics you’d come up with if you were a 16-year-old boy trying to explain away his dependence on Mom.  

• • • Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ? Conservatives Can’t Have It Both Ways 
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Capitalism  |Egoism  |Individualism  |Paul Ryan  | Last week Paul Ryan said that his fondness for the philosophy of Ayn Rand is an “urban legend.” You have to give these wild and crazy Republicans credit for at least one thing: they have cojones the size of the elephants which are the mascots for the party. The urban myth quote came after a career of Ayn Rand idolatry special even for right-wing Republicans: giving the book to his interns, speaking at Ayn Rand tributes, doing videos about her, saying her philosophy inspired him to get involved in politics. This was no youthful fling, but a lifelong love affair -- until last week , apparently.