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Atlas Shrugged *chunky read*
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Elena
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Aug 26, 2010 08:29AM

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I find it disgustingly ironic how the politicians always fall back on the line, "It's not my fault". This is a theme throughout the book that grates on my nerves every time I read it because it still is the predominate theme with today's politicians. But seriously, running the economy is very much like running a business - how is it that we have allowed people to run our economy who know nothing about business? Employers check my credentials to make sure I have the education and the background to handle the job. At some point, I think as a nation we lost touch with checking the credentials of who we put into power. Words are cheap.


Alisha wrote At some point, I think as a nation we lost touch with checking the credentials of who we put into power. Words are cheap.
This is so true, I agree with you.

Per the quote of Francisco’s money speech:
“And when men live by trade – with reason, not force as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward.”
I’m not so sure she is saying that everyone will find their perfect life’s work and excel at it. I think she is saying that whatever people choose to do, they should do it to the best of their ability, and when they do – in an environment of fair competition – they can’t help but be rewarded for it.



I think she is also promoting a level playing field for competition. I don’t think there are laws in the U.S. that prevent a company from becoming too big, just laws to prevent companies from taking unfair advantage and exercising unfair business practices, because this would not create a level playing field. Some industries are natural monopolies and are thus regulated to keep them in check. We have all kinds of laws and regulations to attempt to keep trade fair.
Of course there will always be those that are unscrupulous. We must rely on our laws to prevent this as much as they are able. In the case of recent events, (Enron, Goldman-Sachs, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac), it certainly came to light that further regulation is needed in some industries to prevent such things from happening again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/bus...

Thanks for the article. Is it recent? I had never heard of this book before (love GR!). When I mentioned to my 28 years old son I was reading it, he did know about it. I was surprised.
I just came back from Colorado and I saw a train go by with the name "Rio Grande" in big white letters on the first car. Wasn't that one of the railroad companies in the book? It was great.


Nancy - thanks for the link to the article. It was great. So far I've been rushing to catch up to everyone so I've been doing nothing but reading the book. Now is a good time to read what others are saying about the book and to learn a little more about her philosophy, as I still haven't grasped that from what I've read so far.
Time to get back to reading. Wonder if I can make it to Part 3 by Monday? Probably not -- too much to do! :)

I think part of my problem is that I am struggling with reading this book. It is just not keeping me that interested, and I have to force myself to sit do..."
Sheila - Hang in there if you can. To me, Part I really dragged and I felt the same way. There were interesting spots, but I had to slog through a lot to get there. I started to really enjoy the book when I got to Part 2, Chapter 2, with the money speech. A lot of things start coming together around then, and I could start to see where a lot of this was going. Hopefully it will be similar for you


My problem is that school started - third week with kids already. We are working on a one act production right away and the exhaustion is dragging me down. 12 - 14 hour days where I sneak in some reading here and there. I can't pop in and out of this book - I need to concentrate.
Elena you mentioned the Rio Grande railroad line - I was as usual reading some other stuff about Atlas Shrugged and came across an article analyzing the book that said she patterned her character after James J Hill and the Great Northern trasncontinental railroad - based in Minnesota. Having grown up in the Twin Cities, I found it even more interesting.

Book 3 was difficult for me, I struggled to get through it. it is interesting how we all find different parts of the book more interesting than others. I liked Book 1 the best.

http://www.friesian.com/rand.htm



Okay, I'm not quite up to schedule, but I'm in chapter 7, and got up to the start of John Galt's radio speech last night. When I realized this was "the speech" that had been mentioned, I flipped ahead, and saw it lasted for 56 pages. So I took a break from it last night, and will start to tackle "the speech" tonight. :o)
Since I can only usually take about 20 pages of this book at a time, it might take me a few days to read through and digest this. :o)
Since I can only usually take about 20 pages of this book at a time, it might take me a few days to read through and digest this. :o)


The book was OK, but I think she should have saved John Galt's speech for a separate essay.
Well, I got about half way through the speech last night. No way I could do the whole thing in one sitting.
And truthfully, the whole time I was reading it, I was thinking that Ayn Rand really could have come up with a better way to share her ideas than a long, long, long, rambling, speech.
I imagine the people of the world who were listening to this on the radio in the story just tuning out and turning it off after a couple minutes. In the story all the "movers" and smart people have left, and all the takers and losers and lazy people and exploiters are the only ones left and listening to this radio speech. If the stupid, lazy people couldn't figure out how to keep a single thing in their world running, then they certainly would not understand this radio speech. :o)
And Julie, I am just like you. I actually counted at the beginning of the speech, to see it lasted 56 pages in my copy of the book. So then I noted the page I was on when I started, and every so often I would count and see how far I had made it, and how many pages I had left to go. Makes it a bit easier to slog through if you know exactly when the end it coming, and how close you are to the finish. :o)
And truthfully, the whole time I was reading it, I was thinking that Ayn Rand really could have come up with a better way to share her ideas than a long, long, long, rambling, speech.
I imagine the people of the world who were listening to this on the radio in the story just tuning out and turning it off after a couple minutes. In the story all the "movers" and smart people have left, and all the takers and losers and lazy people and exploiters are the only ones left and listening to this radio speech. If the stupid, lazy people couldn't figure out how to keep a single thing in their world running, then they certainly would not understand this radio speech. :o)
And Julie, I am just like you. I actually counted at the beginning of the speech, to see it lasted 56 pages in my copy of the book. So then I noted the page I was on when I started, and every so often I would count and see how far I had made it, and how many pages I had left to go. Makes it a bit easier to slog through if you know exactly when the end it coming, and how close you are to the finish. :o)


I really enjoyed the book overall and I walked away with 3 main ideas/thoughts/questions.
1) I think that the role of the looters could symbolize the rise of Communism. I think this book is Rand's attempt to show American's (and the world) how it could start here. In the 50's it was the railroads that were the most vulnerable; today I think it's our dependence on oil. Can you image if our diesel trucks and boats couldn't transport goods? How many American's have enough land to grow their own food? Let alone, have the knowledge and skills of how to do it. Today our nation is so dependent on oil, a finite resource - some day the world will run out of oil. Will places like Africa and Ethopia be the only ones to survive since they know how to exist without oil? Who will be the ones chosen to parish first?
2) I see many of my friends not voting because they don't think that their vote actually counts. In Atlas Shrugged, this is how it all starts. People giving up their individual rights and power to politicians because THEY should know better. What qualifies them, the politicians, to know what's best for my family? Besides being good with words, most politicians don't know the first thing about how it feels to be struggling in the middle class today. As a nation the people (the workers and the thinkers) need look up and around. I imagine most Americans walking around staring at their feet...not paying attention to what is going on around them - and this is a mistake. As a society, we don't want to get involved - we want other people to tackle the hard issues and guess what America, that could be the fatal blow!
3) The light Rand casts on the role of a politician is fascinating to me! I had never examined that role in society and what kind of people hold that role. This book has forever changed the way I evaluate the people I elect to office. A great example is George W Bush. We allowed a man who has a massive ego, a poor business track record, and who was only a C student to run and make poignant decisions affecting the worlds largest economy. We are still feeling ripples from his decisions today, with programs like No Child Left Behind that he failed to fund.
As a country and a pretty amazing one at that; we need to start caring again. We need to be able to have civil debates on issues. It can't be one party against another, we need to evolve. I love my country and I believe that we can do so much better. The only way that is going to happen is if we all tackle issues that are important to us. Together, the peoples united power and love for our country and each other will prevail.

I am also probably too old and jaded to have your wonderful sense of hope. I have come to hate partisan politics and don't clearly fall into any one agenda in my beliefs. I think we all hold basically some of the same values, but obviously can't agree on how to accomplish those ends, no matter how informed we think we are.

I don't really fit into any single party and I yes, I am still hopeful and I desperately want to be politically active even though, amongst my friends, I tend to stand alone on this issue. I hate feeling like I have side with one side or another, it would much more productive if it was issue based. I feel like Jim's politics in AS is how exactly how it still works today. I'll give you my support on this issue if you give me your support against this issue. No business could ever thrive in a situation like this, and it's not surprising that this system of getting things done is failing us now.
I worry about what will happen if we don't start changing how things are done. Will our society have to collapse in order to be reborn? I think so...and that is terrifying.


Overall, I did like the book and am glad that I read it. Yes, I felt that she was beating a dead horse with her philosophies. I found her writing to be extremely descriptive and tedious, and I found myself laughing during the last couple of chapters. It was so corny! It felt to me like the old 1950's TV episodes of Superman, or some of the old sci-fi movies of the 50's like "The Day the Earth Stood Still", etc.
I liked the philosphies on money, love and sex, thought some of her story lines were wrapped up rather too tidily. Found her writing to be very stark and bleak. Glad I'm done, but also glad to have read it and been exposed to her thoughts.







http://www.whoisjohngalt.com/2009/02/...

I guess that I had two issues with the speech
1. The length. It lessened the impact because I felt like I was more focused on thoughts of when it will be over. I think that Rand was never told that some good things come in small packages.
2. I felt like Rand was trying to cover too many things in it. There were few things that she did not criticize. I don't agree with her at all on her views on religion.
I feel sorry for her because it seems like she did not have a close family/friend support group. This was probably discussed earlier, but was she married? It just seems that the couples that are actually married are never happy. (Rearden and his wife, Jim and his wife).

Okay, I'm still plugging along on this book. Is anyone else still reading?
I finally finished "the speech" today, and have moved on to the next chapter.
A couple of statements from the speech made me say "what??" today though. Curious what others thought of these(these are both from page 965 of my mass market paperback copy, and are in paragraphs that immediately follow each other.):
"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible or all the blood that is now spilled in the world."
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."
I finally finished "the speech" today, and have moved on to the next chapter.
A couple of statements from the speech made me say "what??" today though. Curious what others thought of these(these are both from page 965 of my mass market paperback copy, and are in paragraphs that immediately follow each other.):
"The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible or all the blood that is now spilled in the world."
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."

I finally finished "the speech" today, and have moved on to the next chapter.
A couple of statements from the speech ..."
I actually really liked these lines! haha
I think it's so true. There are so many people that are scared to make decisions and scared to take responsibility, so they chose to hang back in the wings and allow someone else to make decisions for them. These people are just as guilty for the failures because they chose not to form an opinion by learning what is involved. They are the weakest of society and without taking the time to form a judgement, their lack of action is a detriment to the society they exist within.
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