Hahahahahahahahahahaha

RandZapper here. After a hiatus, we've returned to mock The Atlas Society's website promoting the "upcoming" Atlas Shrugged feature film.

As we have long pointed out, this movie is upcoming in the same sense that the migration of the San Bernardino Mountains into downtown L.A. is upcoming. If your time scale is long enough, you can mark your calendar, but don't expect either the mountains or the movie to hit your doorstep anytime soon.

Evidence that we're right is found on the Atlas Society's own site. (And by the way, shouldn't it be the Atlas Shrugged Society? That's A.S.S. for short.) Anyway, just click on "Current News" and you find yourself reading this breaking news story:

Angelina Jolie set to star in Atlas Shrugged

It's official: Angelina Jolie is set to star in the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. David Kelley, Founder and Senior Fellow of The Atlas Society (TAS) confirmed with producer Howard Baldwin that Jolie is "signed, sealed and delivered."

Woo-hoo! With super-mega-ultra-movie star/celebrity/diplomadonna Jolie on board, nothing can stop the Atlas express now!

But wait. This "current news" item is dated September 21, 2006.

Duuuuude. That was like, two years ago, man. Hasn't Jolie made at least three major flops since then? If she could find time to play Fox in Wanted between squeezing out babies, couldn't she fit Dagny Taggart into her schedule?

Even worse for Atlasphiles, this is the latest - in fact, the only - "current news" on the site.

For fun, we clicked on "Archive," where we found the exact same news item about the anorexic home wrecker. Previous archived stories offer breathless headlines like "Atlas Movie One Step Closer! The Inside Scoop," and "Film Company to Bring Atlas Shrugged to the Screen!" The latter is dated May 13, 2003.

2003? Bush was still in his first term. He hadn't even started pulverizing our economy yet.

Now, we may be only a resuscitated Aztec mummy on a mission to mock Objectivism, but even we know that if there were any heat behind this movie, it would have shown some progress over a period of five years. Instead, there's been no significant news other than the signing of Brad Pitt's creepily tattooed and disturbingly gaunt corpse-bride. Screenwriters have come and gone; plans for a Lord of the Rings style trilogy have been trumpeted, then scrapped; claims have been made of serious interest from a bevy of bona fide stars (none of whom have materialized); a director (with two bombs to his credit) was hired and then let go; and now the project appears to be languishing permanently in Development Hell.

Who could have predicted it? Oh, RandZapper, that's who. Not to toot our own horn or anything.

At this point, the only thing the Atlas movie is good for is playing pretend-casting games (as witness this Wall Street Journal Online waste of time from last April). And it provides an opportunity for Rand fans to sound off on whether the book should be dramatized as a movie or miniseries.

Here's a thought: how about neither?

There is actually just one format that would do true justice to the depth, insight, complexity and intellectualism of Ayn Rand's epic vision. Yes, that's right - we're talking about a comic book. (Or, for you bluenoses, a graphic novel.)

We can picture it now, Atlas Shrugged the comic, written and illustrated by Objectivist nutjob Steve Ditko. Price: $95, payable in gold bullion only. Binding: the gold-embossed pelts of baby harp seals, pasted together with glue made from past Kentucky Derby winners. Length: 4000 pages. Galt's speech alone would run 250 pages, since (obviously) not one bejeweled word of this magisterial summation of the Randian worldview can be omitted. Would you cut the Bible? Well, would ya, punk?

So our advice to all the Objectivists dutifully awaiting the debut of their nonexistent and never-to-be-existent movie is this: Pool your pennies and hire Ditko to pen-and-ink your favorite novel.

Or failing that, sharpen your Crayolas and get to work yourselves.

(They do let you have Crayolas in mental institutions, don't they?)

Stay classy

Randzapper doesn't always keep up on the latest Randian nuttiness, so we are a little behind the times in noticing this remarkable essay by longtime Randolator Harry Binswanger.

Disregarding the old adage that you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, Binswanger launches a salvo of personal attacks on the recently departed conservative pasha William F. Buckley. And when we say recently, we mean recently; Buckley passed away on February 27, 2008, and Binswanger posted his jeremiad on March 10. At least he waited till the body was cold.

The title gives you a pretty good idea of what you're in for: "William F. Buckley, Jr.: The Witch-Doctor is Dead."

Though personally, we think "Ding-Dong, the Witch-Doctor is Dead" would have had more of a, um, ring to it - so to speak.

In case his readers missed the implications of the title - always a possibility when addressing dimwitted Objectivist twits - Binswanger begins his essay with the words, "William F. Buckley, Jr. is finally dead."

Finally! You can just hear Binny breathe a heartfelt sigh of relief. Or it would be heartfelt, if he had a heart or was capable of feeling anything.

Having established his bold, take-no-prisoners stance in defaming a dead guy who can't fight back, the intrepid Binswanger expands on his thesis that Buckley's grave is not worth crying over.

Buckley was the man who initiated and sustained the movement to bring religion into the conservative movement. His first book was "God and Man at Yale," which I haven't read or looked at, but which is said to have criticized Yale education for being both leftist and anti-religious.

Now, ya gotta love this. Binny has not "read or looked at" Buckley's famous book - one of the most influential tomes in modern conservative history - but he just knows it's bad, 'cause somebody told him so. Objectivist intellectualism at its finest! Let's hear it for the independent reasoning mind!

(Has it ever occurred to you that the Randian movement is much like the crowd of disciples in Monty Python's Life of Brian? "You are all individuals," Brian tells them. "We are all individuals," the crowd chants in unison. Except for one guy, apparently untainted by Randism, who says defiantly, "I'm not!")

Anyway, back to Binny and his bete noir.

[Buckley] then founded the magazine National Review, which Ayn Rand in her Playboy interview of 1964 called "the worst and most dangerous magazine in America," because of its crusade to tie capitalism to religion.

Get it now? Binswanger knows Buckley was bad without reading his book - because Ayn Rand (peace be upon her) said so.

The guru has spoken. The oracle has prophesied. Case closed.

And she said so in Playboy, which apparently was not "the worst and most dangerous magazine in America," despite its reprehensible overuse of airbrushing.

Inevitably, Binswanger next brings up that continuing thorn in Objectivism's paw, National Review's devastating and brilliant critique of Atlas Shrugged.

The Whittaker Chambers piece on Atlas Shrugged was probably the most hostile and distorted review of that great work ever.

Actually Chambers' essay was amazingly prescient and brimming with insights into the twisted Randian mindset. Read it for yourself. Or, if you're an Objectivist, just take Binswanger's word that it's not worth reading. After all, he's already told you what to think.

In the intervening years, National Review has written at least two major attacks on Ayn Rand. I recall one titled, I think, "Saint Ayn," and it featured on its cover a drawing of Ayn Rand, as if on a stained glass window, looking heavenward.

Heaven forfend! A magazine about public policy and conservative ideas that actually addressed Ayn Rand as a controversial and significant figure! Didn't Buckley know that, having received the Randian revelation, we were all expected to fall to our knees, blinded by the light, like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus? How dare they presume to criticize - criticize! - the Greatest Genius of the Past Two Thousand Years (TM)?

Notice that Binswanger barely even remembers the cover story on Rand and has to guess at its title. Since he mentions nothing of the content of the piece, it is safe to assume he didn't read it, just as he didn't read Buckley's book. Apparently he did glance at the cover, though. That's what passes for serious intellectual engagement in Objectiworld.

After taking Buckley to task for a couple of policy disagreements, Binswanger retails this unsubstantiated anecdote:

Incidentally, Ayn Rand told me that in the years following her public condemnations of Buckley, he sent her more than one letter "crawling on his knees" (her words) trying to get her approval and/or a rapproachment. Needless to say, he failed in this attempt.

Why do we have trouble believing this claim? Is it because the supremely confident and ever-poised Buckley does not strike us as the type who would crawl on his knees? Is it because Buckley had no conceivable reason to care if Ayn Rand liked him or not, inasmuch as Buckley was an influential leader of conservative thought and Rand was (and is) a sad joke ignored by everyone but dateless college freshmen? Is it because Rand lied so often about other incidents in her life, such as her affair with Nathaniel Branden and her early years in America, that her autobiographical ramblings have not the slightest whiff of credibility? Is it because Rand was obviously a megalomanical, narcissistic, delusional nut whose addled brain chronically conflated fantasy and reality?

After careful consideration and much prayerful reflection, we think the answer is: all of the above.

Not having excoriated the dead man quite enough, Binny lays it on with a trowel in his poisonous concluding graph:

Buckley, more than anyone else, is responsible for subverting the "conservative movement," turning it into its current, depraved status as the anti-reason, anti-man, welfare-statist "religious right." The world is well rid of him.

Nice, Harry. Really ... nice. You and the dead witch you worship were just made for each other.

Now, because what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the goosestepper, let Randzapper emulate your style with this parting thought:

Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, is responsible for polluting the minds of hapless young fools and creating a sick cult of personality that has ruined lives for decades. The world is well rid of this cheap Russian import. Indeed, the world would have been infinitely better off if Alicia Rosenbaum had strangled on her umbilical cord in her mother's feculent womb.

In an uncertain world, at least you can count on Randzapper to stay classy. Always.

Atlas Fragged

Still on the subject of the Atlas Shrugged movie, RandZapper discovered a delightfully clueless report on the film, filed by longtime Objectivist Bob Bidinotto in July of 2006. The report shows up in the archives of the Laissez Faire Books website, but for some reason the page can be accessed only in Google's cache.

Posted on 7/13/06, the LFB entry breathlessly announces that Atlas will soon be a Super Duper Major Motion Picture. According to Bidinotto, who has all kinds of ultra-exclusive Grade A inside dope:

The plan is for the film to be shot and shown in three parts, as a trilogy, like "Lord of the Rings." Only that length, they said, would give sufficient scope to tell Ayn Rand's long, complex story. (The initial $40 million would go mainly to Part I.)...

Oops. Well, that part of the master plan seems to have fallen by the wayside, as there is now no hint of a three-part Atlas, but only a single two-and-a-half-hour snoozefest. Which is obviously just as well, since Lord of the Rings was a colorful, fast-paced story of heartwarming characters and fabulous monsters, while Atlas is a tedious ideological screed stocked with cardboard heroes spouting Randian cliches as they sit around their offices watching their profits shrink. Nobody but the most brain-dead Randroid is gonna pay to sit through nine hours of that.

But ... if "only that length" would do justice to Atlas, then can we assume that the producers now concede that the new slimmed-down movie will not do justice to the book?

LFB continues with its scoop:

The first draft of the script for Part I has been completed by James V. Hart, a veteran screenwriter among whose major credits are "Contact," "Hook," and "Tuck Everlasting."

Hart's script was promptly filed in the shredder, and a new screenwriter, Randall Wallace of Braveheart fame, was hired. It seems a natural choice. He has the word Rand in his name, just like Nathaniel Branden. And having worked with Mel Gibson, he's used to dealing with crazy people.

Philosopher David Kelley -- founder, past executive director, and now Senior Fellow of The Atlas Society (formerly The Objectivist Center) -- has worked closely with Hart to insure the screenplay's philosophical fidelity to the novel.... [Kelley] rates the screenplay about an "8" out of a possible "10."

That's the screenplay they trashed, remember.

The [producers] revealed that they have been deluged with major stars who want to play in the film.

Deluged with major stars, are they? Well, more than a year later no other "major stars" have been attached to the project, so can we assume that the deluge has slowed to a trickle?

While they were eager to hear our suggestions for various characters, the only name they emphasized, repeatedly, was Angelina Jolie for the Dagny role. They made it very clear that Jolie wants to play Dagny very, very much -- and that other actresses (e.g., Ashley Judd), while possibly excellent for the part, might not have the stellar box-office appeal that would allow the film to be a huge success, especially abroad....

RandZapper pauses for the laughter to subside. Jolie has "stellar box-office appeal"? In what star system, Alpha Centauri? In our solar system, the only profitable live-action flick Jolie has made in the last six years was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, co-starring Brad Pitt. It reaped a very healthy $186,336,279. Other than that, here is the dishonor roll of Angelina's big-screen flops since 2001:

Her most recent film, the star vehicle A Mighty Heart, grossed a pathetic $9,176,787.

The Good Shepherd managed to rake in $59,908,565, probably still not enough to cover production and advertising costs.

The laughable Oliver Stone epic Alexander amassed only $34,297,191.

Jolie did manage to make a profitable movie in Shark Tale - $160,861,908 - but since this animated kiddie film only relied on her vocal talents and was aimed at tiny tots, we're not sure it counts.

How about the retro sci-fi flick Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? $37,762,677.

The serial killer chiller-thriller Taking Lives, another star turn for Angelina? $32,682,342.

Something called Beyond Borders, which we have never heard of: $4,430,101.

The sequel to Tomb Raider, called Lara Croft and the Cradle of Life - a disappointing and unprofitable $65,660,196. The sequel's poor performance killed the once-promising franchise stone cold dead.

Another nobody-has-ever-heard-of-it movie, Life, or Something Like It: $14,448,589.

And yet another exercise in instant obscurity, Original Sin: $16,534,221.

We're now back to 2001, and the glory days of the first Tomb Raider and the car-heist movie Gone in Sixty Seconds, both of which scored north of a hundred million bucks. Jolie had box office appeal in 2001, no doubt. But since then? Slim pickings indeed.

This is the "major star" who's going to shoulder the burden of making a stupefying yawner like Atlas Shrugged into a money-making venture? Good luck with that.

But really, none of this matters - since, as LFB informs us:

Relative star status is probably being overstressed in the minds of the moviemakers. If the movie is done well, it's going to be a box-office juggernaut no matter, world-wide.

Hell, yeah! A box-office juggernaut, just like the political juggernaut of the Ron Paul campaign!

These sad, clueless bastards really do believe there's a vast audience of Randinistas out there just waiting to see the greatest novel in history, written by the greatest thinker in history, turned into the greatest movie in history.

Here is RandZapper's prognostication. The movie will open big because of the book's notoriety and the long lines of Rand fanatics who will sally forth from their parents' basements to show up on opening night. It will quickly fizzle, killed by murderous reviews, toxic word of mouth, and general public indifference to all things Randian. Within a month it will be a punchline, not unlike the Bennifer bomb Gigli (domestic gross: $6,087,542). Comparisons to Plan 9 from Outer Space will proliferate. And Rand will be even more of a joke than she already is (if such a thing is possible).

For all these reasons, RandZapper wishes the producers success in getting this turkey off the ground. It could be the final embarrassment for Objectivism, the massive self-detonating bomb that will end the Randist movement for good.

---

Update (11/20/07): Jolie's string of box office misfires continues with the overhyped Beowulf, which underperformed expectations on its opening weekend and seems primed to tank, big-time.

The Wisdom of Netflix Users

Lately there have been reports that the much-delayed movie version of Atlas Shrugged may be underway at long last. The producers have apparently enticed international baby-adopter/all-around nutjob Angelina Jolie to play the role of Dagny Taggart, the quasi-female protagonist of the apocalyptic story. Given Jolie's box-office track record of mega-bombs, it's hard to see why casting her in the lead role constitutes any sort of inducement for the money men to pony up the big bucks needed to finance this project, but as P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute!"

On the eve of the dramatization of Rand's magnum opus, we at RandZapper thought it would be worthwhile to look at the last time Hollywood tackled one of her books. This was back in 1948, when The Fountainhead made it to the big screen, with the way-too-old, slow-talking Gary Cooper incongruously cast as young, dynamic architect Howard Roark, Patricia Neal going all melodramatic as crazy aspiring rape victim Dominique, and Raymond Massey doing his best to preserve his dignity as newspaper tycoon Gail Wynand. Rand herself penned the screenplay, refusing to allow any changes to her deathless prose.

Those unfortunate enough to have seen the resulting turkey know that it consists of embarrassed actors delivering stilted dialogue on expressionistic sets. Roark's "brilliant" architectural creations look like something an autistic preschooler might model out of dog poop. The mood varies from the lugubrious to the ridiculous. Frequent references to "the mob" (meaning ordinary folks) give the film a disturbing fascist air, despite the paean to individualism in the courtroom climax.

But don't take our word for it. Let's see what some of the ordinary folks - i.e., the mob - who rented this abortion on Netflix have to say about it. The most salient observations have been rendered in bold for your reading enjoyment.

So bad it's good. I am a huge Cooper fan, and came to this movie with no idea of what to expect. The lunacy of Ayn Rand's philosophy seems kind of creepy in a post 9/11 world. Blowing up a building to protest its architecture is really not something a likable or even sane character in a film should do. The plot is ridiculous and overblown, and the dialogue beyond trite and laughable.

This movie is truly awful, but entertaining and very compelling in its badness. When I first saw it, within 5 minutes I knew this was a stinker, but with every scene it keeps getting more absurd. So much so that I had to keep watching it to so how profoundly lousy it could get. It's the "Plan 9" of dramas. I don't have the time or energy to list all of the ridiculous plot points, dialogue and directing faux pas. My suggestion: watch this with friends and do a shot every time something idiotic happens or a character makes an overblown speech. You'll be trashed by the end of the flick and have a lot of laughs.

Occasionally interesting, mostly absurd, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Rand and her Objectivist worldview. It argues eloquently for freedom and individual achievement, but its absolute disdain and hatred for "mediocrities" borders on frightening as it seems to argue that the only point to their existence is as little more than cattle. What really sinks this movie, however is its absurdly, over the top melodramatic tone and almost religious worship of beauty and achievement. It's like a big, campy, philosophical soap opera.

It's full of ludicrously didactic speeches (by Ayn Rand herself) and mismatched performances (Neal's "expressionist" performance v. Cooper's exhausted naturalism). It is not a forgotten masterpiece, as some have claimed, but it is endlessly fascinating. Rand attempts to align Nietzsche (Roark = Nietzschean superman) with capitalism, as well as modernist architecture. Yet for all its attacks on the masses and mob mentality, the film seems to want us to submit to (to worship) the charisma and force of the male protagonist. How is this not unlike what the National Socialists attempted by claiming Nietzsche as a precursor to fascist ideology? Note, in particular, the final shot and its jaw-dropping symbolism: Roark astride the world's tallest skyscraper as the camera (simulating the POV of Dominique) slowly makes its ways towards his outstretched legs? You might think my write-up a bit exaggerated -- but wait until you see the film! My review is modest in comparison!!

It plays like a trailer, just showing off the highlights in Rand's novel. The music cues are so sledgehammer they end up being hilarious.

Phallus phallus phallus phallus phallus. The moral of the story: if you stick to our guns, you can have the biggest phallus in New York City.

Ayn Rand was a facile writer, and she's sometimes fun to read. But anyone who takes her at her own self-evaluation, as a philosopher -- nay, as a prophet -- has his head jammed where the moon don't shine.

As written philosophy, Rands work is at times compelling while in the end it rings hollow as a workable life philosophy. As theatrical art, Rands work is laughable. Most of the characters in the movie are one dimensional caricatures of Rands vision of good and evil. The only character that has a modicum of true character development is the publishing magnate, Wynand. His inability to maintain Rands view of purity and ultimate self-destruction seem the most human of all the characters. The monologues by the characters, while at first entertaining in its in-your-face manner, quickly becomes tiresome. Overall, this movie hits you on the head with a bat when a more subtle approach would have been more appropriate.

Irritating and bizarre. The novel has a sense of humanity -however marginal - that the film utterly and completely fails to convey. The film also fails to explore the dynamic between Peter Keating, Dominique Francon and Howard Roarke that makes the novel so powerful. Ayn Rand is a better novelist than she is a philosopher and, unfortunately, this film busies itself too much with Rand's Objectivist indulgences rather than just telling the story.

One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Right up there with Mission Impossible 2 for the greatest all time unintentionally funny films of all time.

What the h#*l was this all about? Ms Rand's philosophical posturings here are ludicrous. The only person who'd enjoy this would be George Costanza who is in to architecture (oh, and importing/exporting and marine biology, of course). It was interesting as a look at a strange point in time when people actually took this story seriously but as entertainment well, the elevator came nowhere near the top floor.

Simply put: it is a mess. There is a point being made here, and that point takes over the plot, overriding any common sense or real drama. Most of the acting and dialogue in the film is very fake. It sounded like a high school kid trying to be a drama major wrote it. Almost every word spoken is stilted and cliched. The music is awful. It tries so hard to tell the story that it is distracting. Patricia Neal walks into the room, and DA DA DA DA, BOOM! It becomes kind of silly after awhile. All this adds up to a movie so melodramatic that you start to laugh. The movie is dead serious, and you're cracking up!

Whole sections of the text are spouted almost verbatim by the characters. And even from the mouths of several truly great actors, the dialogue is at turns mawkish, didactic and always tedious.

Stunningly awful: cardboard characters endlessly spout cliched dialogue in the service of a silly plot. Ayn Rand's screen adaptation of her novel stuffs so much of her very own loopy philosophy into this movie that only true-believing movement conservative types will find any humanity in it.

The dialogue and acting are so over the top that it is comedic. The final scene had us roaring with laughter.

Ayn Rand has some literary talent I will grant you, but as a philosophical tract this movie is positively awful. Very warped view of humanity.

This film is seriously unbelievable. While the architect may have some skills as an architect, he's a horrible leader and is unable to convince anyone to look at things his way. His lack of negotiation and leadership skills squanders what talent he has, making him egocentric, annoying and ultimately a failure. What confuses the heck out of me is that I think the author and director want us to side with him. How can anyone?

Sanctimonious malarkey. Wooden acting. Unlikeable characters.

Haven't laughed that hard in a long time--a five star comedy! Hilarious!

And, oh yes, there were a few - a very few - positive reviews from brainwashed Randolators blown away by the genius of it all. These people really do need to get out more.

RandZapper looks forward to reading the reviews of Atlas Shrugged when it opens in '08 or '09. We suspect they will be very similar to the ones above.

Angelina, baby, you'd better get busy and adopt some more kids. 'Cause when the notices come in on this flick, you're gonna need all the comfort you can get.

You Don't Look a Day over 49

Today, Wednesday, October 10, 2007, is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged, the gargantuan novel that launched the Objectivist movement.

Robert Bidinotto blogs about a dinner held in the book's honor. Surprisingly, many of the participants appear to have been adults. Some may even hold jobs, though this has not been confirmed.

Naturally on this special occasion we will hear many effusions of praise from loyal Randians, starting with Bidinotto himself, who declares that the book's issuance represents "a milestone in human literature, philosophy, and achievement."

Hmm. Literature? Doubtful. Philosophy? More than doubtful. Achievement? Well, the damn thing is really long!

Bidinotto also includes a photo of himself with Barbara Branden, confessing that when the shot was snapped, he was "still misty-eyed over her extraordinary tribute to Rand."

Careful, Bob! Emotions are not tools of cognition!

Ah, but we forget. Emotionalism of the most cloying kind is permitted in one and only one Randian context - tributes to the greatness, the genius, the sheer awesomeness of Ayn Rand herself. As Murray Rothbard incisively observed lo these many years ago, Randism is comprised of an exoteric and an esoteric teaching. The exoterica consist of individualism, capitalism, reason, selfishness, and all that good stuff. The esoteric teaching - the heart of the beast - consists of one tenet and one tenet only: "Ayn Rand is the greatest person that has ever lived or ever shall live."

On this semicentennial, no doubt many Randinistas will be moved to pontificate on how brilliantly their favorite novel (and for many, the only novel they've read since high school, except maybe for The Fountainhead) predicted the future. Look around us, they will cry. See how it all came true, just as Ayn in her infinite wisdom foretold! Then they will say something about high taxes and collapsing bridges.

But let's take a closer look. Here are a few political, economic, cultural, and other developments that Atlas failed to foresee:

A period of prosperity commencing in the late '50s and continuing, with only minor downturns, until the present day. (Atlas foresaw a Great Depression.)

The information revolution - personal computers, the Internet, and loathsome little blogs like this one. (In Atlas, people are still banging away on typewriters and getting their news from newsreels.)

The outsourcing of basic manufacturing industries to Third World countries, and the rise of a service- and information-based economy. (Sayonara, Rearden Steel.)

The eclipse of rail travel by the airline industry, and the eclipse of cargo trains by the trucking industry. (Happy trails, Taggart Transcontinental.)

The ubiquity of television. (Galt's speech is broadcast mainly on the radio. There is a passing reference to television, but TV does not play any role in the story. This is especially odd since TV was already well established by 1957.)

Americans' mass immigration to the Sunbelt and the West. (In Atlas, all the financial and commercial action is in New York City and its surrounds. The West is a lot of open desert, suitable for running train tracks through. Colorado is so empty that a whole valley can be hidden there, unknown to the outside world. The South does not appear to exist at all.)

New directions in science. (Gene-splicing, quantum theory, string theory or any equivalents are absent from Atlas, which presents a scientific community still mired in Newtonian assumptions.)

The demise of hats. (Nobody wears hats anymore. In Atlas, everybody does.)

Now, suppose someone had told Ayn Rand fifty years ago, on the day of her book's triumphant debut, that over the next five decades there would be a significant growth of government spending, taxes, regulations, and controls ... and that in the same period of time, there would be unprecedented prosperity, an unrivalled explosion of scientific and technological knowledge, and a blossoming of freedom around the world.

Would she have believed it? No way. In high dudgeon she would have insisted that such an outcome was logically untenable, entailing fatal contradictions.

Yet that's exactly what has happened.

So ... Happy Birthday, Atlas. Enjoy your cake and punch. But don't party too hearty.

Frankly, dear ... you're showing your age.

From the Horse's Mouth

We at RandZapper typically eschew quoting Ayn Rand herself, in favor of citing the pronouncements of her more addled admirers. Many of these pronouncements have concerned the American Indian, whom some Randolators regard as a peculiarly loathsome species of vermin fit only for wholesale extermination.

Surely the great lady herself would not have agreed with such outrageous sentiments. Or would she?

The excellent ARCHN blog recently addressed this topic, presenting us with the following quotation straight from the lips of John Galt's creatrix:

"They didn’t have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using . . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their ‘right’ to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent."- Address to West Point, 1974

Niiiice. A rare lapse on the part of history's greatest intellect? A commenter on the ARCHN blog thinks not, and produces other Rand quotes to make his case.

We owe nothing to the Indians, except the memory of the monstrous evils done by them.... Now, I don't care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man.... I oppose applying contract law to American Indians.

All these quotes, we are informed, are from Ayn Rand Answers, no doubt a treasure trove of choice nuggets of nuttiness.

A clueless anonymous commenter then queries,

okay, I give up: what part of this quote/attitude do you have a problem with?

Hmm, hard to say. Could it be a self-styled "philosopher" condemning the indigenous peoples of the Americas on the basis of Hollywood movies she's watched? Reducing all of native American culture to "monstrous evils," without a shred of evidence other than the aforementioned Hollywood movies? Claiming that Indians lived in caves? Saying they have no human rights because they aren't civilized? Explicitly connecting the concept of "civilized" with the concept of "white"? All of the above?

Evidently the view of Indians as pestilent savages who deserved to be wiped out is not limited to the wackos on the fringes of the Randiverse. It is the official position staked out by the wacko at the very center of the Randiverse, Aym Grand herself.

But remember, it's only a matter of time until Randism sweeps the nation! We can't wait!

Signs of Intelligent Life in the Randiverse?

Intelligent criticism from Randians is rare enough to warrant notice - and even acclaim - when it appears.

Here's a lengthy, detailed critique of your favorite reanimated Aztec mummy's blog - a critique that actually manages to sound sensible and nuanced.

Naturally, we at RandZapper disagree with the critique, but at least the author attempts to separate himself (and his philosophy) from the nonsense often proffered in Objectivism's name.

We think that in drawing this distinction, the author overstates his case. It's quite obvious, for instance, that John Lewis was advocating the use of nuclear weapons in the article we quoted, even if he didn't come straight out and say it. Leonard Peikoff, pontificating on The O'Reilly Factor a few years ago, advocated the use of battlefield nukes without specific presidential authorization (prompting the astonished host to dub him "Dr. Strangelove"). And the quotes we take from newsgroups are not from outliers, but mainly from the oldest and most prominent Objectivist discussion group on the Web.

Still, it is good to know that not all Randians favor blasting the planet to kingdom come just to make a point.

The author also overreaches when he argues that Ayn Rand didn't want loyalists, but independent thinkers who would use her philosophy as a means to their ends. This may be what Rand said, but as Groucho would have put it, "Who ya gonna trust - me or your lying Ayn?" In her actual practice, as opposed to theory, Rand surrounded herself with sycophants, became enraged over petty disagreements, required her followers to undergo psychological therapy if they doubted her doctrines, excommunicated anyone unwilling to follow this regime, and ended up virtually alone because she had alienated nearly all her friends and allies. Today you can easily find online Randists competing with each other to prove which one boasts the most comprehensive recall of their goddess's sacred works - line by line, and word by word. The Objectivist movement is a herd of independent minds.

Sadly, there is no mention of the Randians' fascination with the word "savages" and their evident desire to expunge said savages from the Earth by any means necessary. But we acknowledge that no critique can cover everything.

Anyhow, read it for yourself. We are happy to provide a link to a Randist who has something intelligent to say. If only he were not such an isolated case!

(Those who wish to read the rationale for RandZapper's strategy of quoting only the most extreme comments made by self-identified Objectivists can find it here.)