Atlas Shrugged Part 1 (page 2)

SixofNine

Humorous that the movie uses the railroad industry as an element.

Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged

Actually reading this novel has been compared to pushing one's head through a light-year of refrigerated saltwater taffy (sort of like a libertarian Das Kapital).

To save you reading over a thousand pages of turgid prose, here is Atlas Shrugged. No "spoiler" alert is necessary:

A dark and lonely handsome 'hero' with no friends invents a perpetual motion machine;
When someone mentions the word "tax" he and his bazilllionaire 'friends' wail like babies, and flee in a huff to live in the mountains; [5]
All the decent folk who helped them make those bazillions of dollars building trains and perpetual motion machines are left behind to rot;
The world is like North Korea, but quite a bit less fun. Lucky for our heroes, their mountain hideout is a land of colourful plenty;
Everyone in the world is miserable except them, as they are busy driving their trains up and down in their incredible mountain hideaway;
They have romance-novel sex with other capitalist boors, but can't commit due to being too busy;
Everyone else is wrong, they are completely correct;
They pop up suddenly in public and punish the miserable hordes by lecturing them in interminably boring speeches that go on and on and on for about one hundred pages and have only one point - "You're all fucked, but I'm not, 'cos I've got loads of money, Ha Ha!";
The world goes to Hell in a handbasket, except for them, 'cos they're in their seekrit mountain hideout, which can't be seen from the air, so it's, like, seekrit. And they have trains, after all. [6]
The reader falls into a deep coma. The survival rate is estimated at 3%-5%.

Conservatives apparently hold Atlas Shrugged in high regard, even though they've already got a foundational text that is even longer and more boring. Rush Limbaugh frequently refers to it. [7] Glenn Beck started reading it in early 2008, [8] so he's probably halfway through by now but in 2010, it became painfully clear that he had finished only the first few pages and didn't even get those right. [9] It taught these guys "conservative love," [10] but unfortunately, not how to rap.

The book probably would have been much shorter if ol' Ayn had laid off the speed. [11]

WontLeave

It's always helpful to get the rantings of opinionated fringe groups. Thank you for the copy-and-paste insight, bohm. Can you find something as scathing about An Inconvenient Truth or some Michael Moore movies or would that be against your uber-leftist religion?

Thankfully, we with a back-story of dealing with the JW nutters who use propaganda and severely-slanted spin have a place like this to come to, so we can get it from a fresh source.

bohm

Wontleave: really, thats just a silly rant.

james_woods

Wontleave: really, thats just a silly rant.

I am confused - whose rant? Seriously, Bohm - I would not waste my money on this movie if I were you. Something tells me you would not be able to appreciate it.

BizzyBee

The critics will have their claws sharpened and minds made up before hand, of course.

And the Rand fans will have their brains in neutral and minds made up beforehand, of course.

bohm

James, well, thanks for the tip!

I would recommend Hot Grits, it looks like a really good movie though i didnt have time to see it. I would not recommend the next Uwe Boll movie, because all his other movies suck.

And if you dont like fish, i would not recommend sushi, but if you like fish, i absolutely will!.

kurtbethel

Yes, I can see where the advocacy or reasoning and rational thought that the book makes would be unacceptable to certain persons.

streets76

How does Atlas compare to The Fountainhead?

Someone once told me that Fountainhead was his favorite book of all time, so I tried to read it. Thought it was awful, but that was a long time ago. Maybe I wasn't ready for it.

I've also tried to read Ulysses a couple of times, without success.

Terry

I work in a bookstore with 19 other people all of whom are very Liberal in their values although I doubt very many spend any time voting.

I asked around casually if anybody planned to see Atlas Shrugged. The reaction was intensely adverse!

What in the world was happening?

I asked some follow up questions. Lo and Behold!

Apparently whatever media my fellow workers get their news from is spreading the scuttlebut that the film was made FOR the Tea Party Movement!

Consequently, they are intensely against it AUTOMATICALLY.

I snooped around the Worldwide Web and, sure enough, article after article mentions both the Tea Party movement and Atlas Shrugged over and over again in an effort to link the two. But, nowhere is it stated the film was MADE FOR this grassroots conservative party.

The polarization of political thought in America is downright nasty right now.

I've been pointing out to people that Fundamentalists, Evangelicals and Conservatives have always been rabidly ANTI-AYN RAND historically.

The King of Conservative journalists was William F. Buckley. He denounced Rand and had Whittaker Chambers review Atlas Shrugged when it was first published. Chambers eviscerated the novel and Buckley sneered at Rand.

Rand was Atheist. Rand was against self-sacrifice and altruism. How in the world would Conservatives ever EMBRACE her philosophy or her writing?

But, no.......

What has given Atlas Shrugged bestseller status year after year and decade after decade is her chillingly accurate description of what happens when

Liberal/Socialist philosophy is followed ECONOMICALLY. The parallels between today's economic brinksmanship and financial disaster closely mirrors the

situation in Shrugged. It is this which has readers discovering the novel which supports pure Capitalism and ownership of property without government intereference.

So, this movie will NEVER get a fair viewing.

Source: TPM Muckraker www.tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com
What do you get when you cross Tea Party politics with a movie adaptation of a critically-panned but bestselling dystopian novel from the 50s?
TPM went to see Atlas Shrugged: Part One on Friday and found the answer: Nothing good.

Source:Indiewire www.indiewire.com
Box Office: Tea Party-Fueled “Atlas Shrugged” Makes Respectable Debut
by Peter Knegt (April 17, 2011)
Box Office: Tea Party-Fueled “Atlas Shrugged” Makes Respectable Debut
"Atlas Shrugged, Part I."
Rocky Mountain Pictures released “Atlas Shrugged, Part I” on 299 screens this weekend, receiving a fair but not overwhelming response from audiences. The tepidly reviewed film is based on Ayn Rand’s final novel, which details a dystopian United States that collapses as government asserts control. It has received significant backing by Tea Party groups, with FreedomWorks, the Tea Party-allied group headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, among the groups supporting the film.
Source: USA Today www.content.usatoday.com
By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY
Tea Party groups are talking up a new movie version of Atlas Shrugged, based on the Ayn Rand novel about a dystopian United States that collapses as government asserts control.

Atlas Shrugged and the Tea Party Revolts

Rated 4.0 out of 5.0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tNheAEHprI

Atlas Shrugged Part 1

Atlas Shrugged

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