Journey Into Dementia With Atlas Shrugged

If you are going to comment on either a book or a movie, it's only right that you read it or view it - in its entirety. Unfortunately for me, I both read "Atlas Shrugged" and viewed each of the three movies that are contained in its "trilogy".

Ayn Rand was a pathetic, highly affected, writer who became the patron saint of America's puerile, idle rich.

I'm guessing that most of her .1% followers inherited their dough, but what do I know? There is definitely a cult of true believers who worship her. I hear Ron Paul actually went so far as to name his son after her.

Ron even has a cameo in the movie. He's not the only well known whack job with a cameo. Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Andrew Wilkow, Grover Norquist, and Matt Gibbe also appear.

Part 1 of the movie was a colossal failure. Why they went on to make Parts 2 & 3 is a mystery. The movies came out in 2011, 2012 and 2014 respectively. I'm guessing they were intended to shape the opinions of American voters in advance of the 2016 election.

People spend big money buying elections. The Koch boys are alleged to have spent almost $900 million dollars on the 2016 election and they failed to get their presidential candidate on the ticket.

On the other hand, they already had McConnell and Ryan and lots of other Republicans in the bag.

I digress. "Atlas Shrugged" could be the socially accepted alternative to waterboarding. Waterboarding is a war crime. It is illegal under the Geneva Convention. It doesn't produce reliable results.

On the other hand, "Atlas Shrugged" is not illegal. It's movie making at its worst, but it is not illegal. The only thing consistent from Part 1 to Part 2 to Part 3 is terrible dialogue, bad acting, transparent attempts at brain washing, and the viewer's desire to flee.

Any viewer forced to actually sit through and watch every moment of these three films would crack and give up anything to make it stop. Remember Alex in "A Clockwork Orange"?

In "Sleeper", an historian asks Miles/Woody Allen about a Howard Cosell videotape.

Historian, "We weren't sure at first what to make of this, but we developed a theory: we feel that when people committed great crimes against the state, they were forced to watch this."

Miles, "Yes. That's exactly what it was."

Movies like "Atlas Shrugged" are right out of Joseph Goebbels' playbook. They are shameless propaganda meant to terrify the audience and produce hate.

James Aglialoro is credited with being the Producer for the "Atlas Shrugged" trilogy. He also gets credit as a screenwriter. His gamble was a box office disaster. The films grossed progressively less each time, but that did not deter James. James was clearly driven by something other than profits or cinematic value in terms of audience approval.

Who exactly was inspired by Ayn Rand? How did Russian born, Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, a professed atheist, become the moral and intellectual guru for American Conservatives? How did Rand's Objectivism become the ideological backbone of the Libertarian Party? How did a woman who said, "Believing in God is an insult to reason." help shape the position of the Christian right? What force is at work here?

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed." - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi was/is clearly not everyone's cup of tea.

Gandhi, like others, was influenced by the teachings of Christ. He, like others, was assassinated.

Greed is at the core of Ayn's writings. Greed is also at Trump's core. “I like money. I’m very greedy. I’m a greedy person. I shouldn’t tell you that, I’m a greedy – I’ve always been greedy. I love money, right?", Donald Trump on 1/9/16.

Holy Moly!