If You Don't Think We're in an Ayn Rand Nation.......

Read this:

Idaho State Senator thinks Ayn Rand should be required reading for high schoolers  - NY Daily News


© 2013 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
My latest book is AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, published by St. Martin's Press. Click here to order the book from Amazon.com, and here to order it from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter: @gary_weiss
Tweet

Ayn Rand Nation is Now in Paperback

I would be remiss if I did not point out that AYN RAND NATION, my account of the nation's long struggle with the hard-right maxims of the author of "Atlas Shrugged," is out in paperback today.

It contains an Afterword that describes how Americans actually adopted a key facet of Rand's philosophy in 2012: they acted in their "rational self-interests" by voting for candidates who would not turn the clock back on Medicare and Social Security.

One of the key prophecies in the book, articulated by Ayn Rand Institute leader Yaron Brook, turned out to be correct: the elections, and their aftermath, turned out to be a struggle between traditional American values and narrow-self interests.

So far, the narrow self-interests are not carrying the day. But give them time. They have funding and ignorance on their side, and that usually wins out. 



© 2013 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

------------------------------
My latest book is AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, published by St. Martin's Press. Click here to order the book from Amazon.com, and here to order it from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter: @gary_weiss
Tweet

President Obama Endorses Ayn Rand Nation!

Well, almost.

In an interview in Rolling Stone with historian David Brinkley, Obama makes what are, I believe, the first comments he's ever made about Ayn Rand. And they're very much along the lines of my analysis in Ayn Rand Nation:

Brinkley: Have you ever read Ayn Rand?

Obama: Sure.

Brinkley: What do you think Paul Ryan's obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?

Obama: Well, you'd have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a "you're on your own" society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

 Of course, that's not the Republican tradition. I made this point in the first debate. You look at Abraham Lincoln: He very much believed in self-sufficiency and self-reliance. He embodied it – that you work hard and you make it, that your efforts should take you as far as your dreams can take you. But he also understood that there's some things we do better together. That we make investments in our infrastructure and railroads and canals and land-grant colleges and the National Academy of Sciences, because that provides us all with an opportunity to fulfill our potential, and we'll all be better off as a consequence. He also had a sense of deep, profound empathy, a sense of the intrinsic worth of every individual, which led him to his opposition to slavery and ultimately to signing the Emancipation Proclamation. That view of life – as one in which we're all connected, as opposed to all isolated and looking out only for ourselves – that's a view that has made America great and allowed us to stitch together a sense of national identity out of all these different immigrant groups who have come here in waves throughout our history.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

David Frum weighs in: "Good thing for him his email address is unpublished."

Tell me about it.

© 2012 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
My latest book is AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, published by St. Martin's Press. Click here to order the book from Amazon.com, and here to order it from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter: @gary_weiss

Ayn Rand Acolytes Go Ballistic Over CNN Rand Segment

A four-minute CNN segment on Ayn Rand has struck a nerve with Ayn Rand factotums.

The Ayn Rand Institute's Don Watkins has a blog post out the other day, taking issue with a comment that I made on CNN's Situation Room last week, in which I said: “Ayn Rand made it morally acceptable to be harsh in your treatment of the poor.”

Watkins says:

Let’s get this straight: Rand did not advocate “harsh” treatment of poor people, nor did she think in terms of “rich” vs. “poor.” She thought in terms of individuals, arguing that every person, whatever his income, has an inalienable moral and political right to pursue his own life and happiness–neither robbing others nor being robbed by them. 

Rand was opposed to every so-called "entitlement" program for the poor and middle class. She advocated eliminating all taxation and all public services, turning back the clock to the era of the robber barons, when "individuals" flourished, and the state of one's education and health were a function of one's wealth.

That's not, of course, the way the Randers push their ideology. What's amazing is how so many otherwise well-meaning and intelligent people buy into it. Sure, the Rand philosophy doesn't advocate oppression of the poor, not in so many words. But that is what it would do. To deny that is just silly.

When I read this kind of rationalization, I'm reminded of Anatole France:  "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Actually I should amend what I just said. Rand was opposed to entitlements unless they benefited her personally, in which case it was OK for her--as it was when she and her husband went on Medicare, a program she had violently opposed from the beginning.

That's reminiscent of Paul Ryan attacking the economic stimulus while asking for stimulus money for his district.

This wasn't the only grumbling from the Rand establishment over that little CNN segment.

Also last week, the ARI's Harvey Binswanger posted a really amazing comment on his website concerning the Situation Room broadcast. This was posted on his website hblist.com but has since been removed. After first bemoaning the fact that an ARI spokesman didn't get as much air time as myself or Rand biographer Anne Heller, Binswanger said:

"Anti-Semitic"?

In Ayn Rand Nation I said that Randers don't constitute a cult, and I still adhere to that belief. It's far too diverse a movement. But these kinds of irresponsible attacks demonstrate that there are still cultlike aspects to the Rand movement. No wonder Paul Ryan has sought, unconvincingly, to distance himself from Rand.


© 2012 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
My latest book is AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, published by St. Martin's Press. Click here to order the book from Amazon.com, and here to order it from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter: @gary_weiss

Guardian Columnist George Montbiot on Ayn Rand Nation

George Montbiot, the noted British writer, has a column out today in The Guardian on Ayn Rand Nation, with the title "How Ayn Rand became the new right's version of Marx."

Montbiot make the following reference to one of the book's main characters, Alan Greenspan:

Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous admission that it was Rand who persuaded him that "capitalism is not only efficient and practical but also moral", [Greenspan] mentioned [Rand] in his memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and this, it seems, is now the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence that even today Greenspan remains her loyal disciple, having renounced his partial admission of failure to Congress.

In the book I call Greenspan the "Murray Hill Candidate," programmed at an early age to assassinate regulation. He was a loyal acolyte for 30 years, a subject he has sought to submerge through obfuscation and denial.

I hope that Ayn Rand Nation sets the record straight about Greenspan's role in making the nation as vulnerable as it was to out-of-control bankers and speculators.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, was published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Click here to order the book from Amazon.com, and here to buy it from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter @gary_weiss.

Ayn Rand Nation Excerpt at Bloomberg View

Bloomberg View published today an excerpt from Ayn Rand Nation, which can be found here.

The Bloomberg excerpt is from Chapter Nine, "The First Teabagger," in which I describe how Rand made comments in a radio interview that presaged the Tea Party, and predicted a market crash worse than 1929. She also roundly denounced budget deficits, and generally sounded as if she'd hopped off a stage at a Tea Party Rally.

There's also an article on the book at Counterpunch today by Pam Martens, a former Wall Street whistle-blower.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Click here to pre-order the book from Amazon.com, and here to pre-order from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter @gary_weiss.

The GOP Grapples With Ayn Rand's Atheism

Not Ayn Rand's cup of tea

My latest post in the FrumForum describes how Ayn Rand's atheism is infecting the far right, the Tea Party movement and, through Ron Paul especially, Republican politics in general.

It's kind of a sneak preview of one of the themes that I explore in AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, which will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28.

Given how fashionable Rand is in the GOP nowadays, her atheism is going to raise some thorny issues for the Republican Party. She repudiated not just belief in God but cherished Judeo-Christian moral tenets, including the desirability of altruism and help for the needy. Rand's Objectivism celebrates selfishness and promotes the belief that the poor need to rise up without relying on help from anyone.

Rand's celebration of individuality certainly has its place, but her influence on national politics is corrosive -- if, that is, you believe that government plays an important role in society.

Read more about it on the FrumForum, and feel free to plunge into the lively discussion taking place there.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Click here to pre-order the book from Amazon.com, and here to pre-order from Barnes & Noble.

How Ron Paul Channels Ayn Rand

I have a blog item in the FrumForum today on serial presidential candidate Ron Paul, and how he has adopted policies that closely parallel those of Ayn Rand.

This is the first a number of blog posts I expect to write for FrumForum, which is a leading political website.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Pre-order by clicking here.

You Can Judge a Book By its Cover

Or at least you can in this instance. The cover art was just posted on Amazon.com.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Pre-order by clicking here.

Some Amazon-ranking Weirdness

I think this shows how meaningless (and volatile) those Amazon rankings are.

Since my feeble attempts at publicity for AYN RAND NATION yesterday afternoon - just on this blog, which I've shamefully neglected since starting my weekly Street.com column some months ago, my long-unrevised website and on Twitter and Facebook - my Amazon rankings went from 3 million to 69,000 and now (and for the next few hours, I guess) it's the best-selling Ayn Rand biography.

All this is nice, considering that the publication date is five months away. It's doubly nice that a book that is not an Ayn Rand biography is, momentarily, the best-selling Ayn Rand biography. It's an examination of Rand's influence on modern American society. But I guess that category comes closest to describing the book.

Be that as it may, I am gratified that apparently some people out there are making a long-term investment in the book. By all means pre-order it by clicking here. I believe that Amazon doesn't bill you until it's shipped, but don't hold me to it.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

My Next Book — AYN RAND NATION

My next book is something of a departure for me. It's not about scams or crooks or finance. It's about the hidden struggle for America's soul.

That's the subtitle of AYN RAND NATION, which will be published by St. Martin's Press on February 28, 2012.

AYN RAND NATION will explore the pervasive influence of the Russian-born author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. She has long been dismissed by the intelligentsia as a fringe character. Don't you believe it.

Her ideology, Objectivism, has been adopted in large measure by a wide swath of America's opinion leaders, and to a large extent by virtually all of the Republican presidential candidates.

Rand provides the ideological underpinnings for the effort to cut or destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and to drastically shrink the role of government.

She wrote the recipe for deregulation.

Love her or despise her, Rand is a pervasive influence in the national dialogue. To understand the ideological basis for that dialogue, and to comprehend the mindset that led to the 2008 financial crisis, it's essential to understand Ayn Rand.

That is the purpose of AYN RAND NATION.

Through the stories of people influenced by Rand, from the Tea Party to members of her inner circle to Alan Greenspan, this book explores how Ayn Rand became a pervasive influence on the American right.

This book explores why Rand matters — and why her ideology needs to be engaged, not ignored. Click here to pre-order your copy.

In the weeks and months ahead, watch this blog for updates and developments.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.