As far as I can tell the people who are so moved by Atlas Shrugged that they want to be an Ayn Rand follower, are missing several very important points.
They are not John Galt and never will be.
They are not Ayn Rand and never will be.
Ayn Rand would most likely call them to their faces, "corrupt mediocrities."
Ayn Rand may have despised the negative aspects of collectivism but she was also an authoritarian and insisted that everyone believe as she believed.
Her followers are just that, Followers;
Ayn Rand hated people who followed other people.
Ayn Rand's Followers are authoritarian Followers. That quality of being a Follower is easy to identify. They brook no criticism of their chosen deity, or totalitarian dictator, seeing no difference between the two. At the slightest hint of disagreement an authoritarian follower goes into attack mode with the ferocity of a Pitt Bull.
lease raise your hand if you didn't know that the 1% percent was and is conspiring against the Wall Street Occupiers. And it's not a clean straight forward sort of conspiring either. Nothing like offering to come forward, get together and talk. No, this is cloak and dagger bigtime treacherous strategy from the deep of the heart, for lack of a better word, of the GOP. Needless to say it's designed to kill.
And to lie.
And to kill careers.
And to lie.
And lie...
The idea is to kill not only the movement, but, Hey! Who knows? A few human bodies might turn up floating face down on the cold waters of the Potomac. Yes, the party of NO, has a long history of somehow, very conveniently not being around when an airplane crashes and a witness who was about to spill certain beans to Congress happens to be in it and, --- surprise --- he dies. Oh. dear.
Quite a lot of that sort of thing went on under Bush-Cheney-Rove. You didn't really think that JFK Jr. was the kind of pilot who would go and bungle so badly he'd crash his plane with his celebrity girlfriend beside him did you? That actually had earmarks of a Mafia/CIA operation.
Oh dear.
Then there was the matter of Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone's death just before the election. Oops!
Oh dear, indeed. Click here if you think I indulge in too much paranoia.
There several other notable crashes with similar earmarks that were mentioned in Republican owned media and then it all disappeared. And for some reason, one's grip on reality was called into question if one mentioned it. Here is one more significant and unsolved plane crash which killed Bush White house IT Guru, Mike Connell. OK, planes do crash all the time. But rarely does the universe time it so that it coincides with these circumstances: He knew a lot about what was going on in side the Oval Office, did not approve of it, and was on his way to tell Congress what he knew. What all of this amounts to, for me, is that the 1% are killers; and if you get in their way you'll be offed in a twinkling.
So now the strategy elucidating at least one of the 1%'s probably many strategies, has been leaked by former aides of Republican House Speaker, John Boehner. And one very good outcome is that now we know where at least some of it is coming from. And where it is going.
Right here is a big difference between the 1% and the OWS:
OWS is way out front.
No hidden agendas
Populist
Patriotic without being nauseating.
Peaceful.
Lovers of Truth.
If we happen to think of it, you'll know about it right away. Compare that to the Republican style.
Dark, craven, memos delivered mouth to ear; whispers, footfalls and lurking around corners of the halls of Congress.
The GOP hatches plans just like slithering cobra moms leaving their newborns to fend for themselves.
Elitist
Unpatriotic, but gives lip service when backed into a corner.
No respect for the US Constitution. Regards the US Constitution as a dishrag to be pulled into any shape they want.
Republicans love lies and hate truth. They believe their wealth can create any reality they want.
• • •
So the other shoe has dropped, as it were, and we have the satisfaction of a response, albeit an illegitimate one. At the same time it tells us that the other side is every bit as engaged as we thought. The silence now is broken in more ways than one. The Washington, DC lobbyists and PR firms have been working late guttering not only the candles but their minds as well in the right wing's fevered attempt to nullify the good effects of Occupy Wall Street for the American People, and the bad effects for the GOP; and therefore, the crafty, champagne sipping 1%. Its funny to read their descriptions of the OWS people: not only are they unwashed, but also, gasp, they use drugs; not only medicinally, but also recreationally.
Oh dear.
Wasn't it George W Bush who was famous among his friends and family for filling his nostrils til they bled snorting excellent blow? AKA cocaine.
The video below reports on merely one of the many likely strategies likely to be floating around National Republican Commitee Headquarters. (whenever I think of RNCH, I have to smile remembering when Ken Melman, the head of the whole shebang, turned out to be gay, and also, he wanted to be forgiven by his gay peers.)
Here is a word of wisdom to all the people who have told me that to rail against the government was at worst psychotic, and at its best, useless, because the government is us. Well, that may once have been the reality of government in days of yore, but now, it seems that the government is not only not us, but, really, not even a friend. The federal government, it turns out wants --- if not to destroy us, the 99%, at least it is dedicated to the proposition of keeping us asleep --- snoozing in our chains. How is that different from the movie, The Matrix?
lease raise your hand if you didn't know that the 1% percent was and is conspiring against the Wall Street Occupiers. And it's not a clean straight forward sort of conspiring either. Nothing like offering to come forward, get together and talk. No, this is cloak and dagger bigtime treacherous strategy from the deep of the heart, for lack of a better word, of the GOP. Needless to say it's designed to kill.