When Saul Alinsky began building his community-organization movement in 1930s Chicago, observers were watching Alinsky with one eye, while with the other eye observing the building of communist and fascist movements in Europe. It wasn’t hard then to see in Alinsky’s programs at home, elements of the people’s revolution from Russia, as well as some of the same “in your face” tactics being employed by Hitler’s Brownshirts.
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life. At the age of nine, she decided to make fiction writing her career. Thoroughly opposed to the mysticism and collectivism of Russian culture, she thought of herself as a European writer, especially after encountering Victor Hugo, the writer she most admired.
Why “Atlas Shrugged” is flying off the bookshelves
According to a Library of Congress survey, Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, may be second to the Bible as the most influential book read in America. It is required reading in management training at BB&T, the 12th-largest bank in the U.S. and one that resisted taking TARP bailout funds. Since the Obama administration took office, Atlas Shrugged has been making a renaissance with rising sales and library waiting lists, partly because it explains our current economic woes more straightforwardly than most of what we hear from today’s experts.
Orwell Today
Comparing the world George Orwell described in “1984”
with the world we are living in today, 2001/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9 2010
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: We Must Speak Honestly About Islam
Voltaire famously said: “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Indeed, many people have died defending our ability to exercise that right
This week in Sydney, I attended a forum on Freedom of Speech organized by the prestigious Australian think tank The Centre for Independent Studies, in which Ayaan Hirsi Ali was the guest speaker (together with prominent conservative Australian journalist Janet Albrechtsen). Ayaan is a person who knows the risk in exercising freedom of speech only too well, and indeed, the obligation to protect that right . She has for many years now lived under a fatwa and constant security over her outspoken views about the dangers of radical Islam and refusal to be silenced.
Death fears of the Boomer Left
“Back in the Sixties,” sighs an ex-hippie lady I know, “everybody was happy. Really. Everybody.”
Gosh, that wasn’t what other people remember. Most teenagers go through a lot of ups and downs, and in the Sixties the Baby Boomers were rollercoastering through their own adolescence. (Some still are.)
Marriage and the Constitution
The federal same-sex marriage decision out of California sets into motion a sequence of events that will result in a Supreme Court earthquake two years from now. The Supreme Court can either vindicate traditional marriage, or forever redefine the most basic unit of human civilization.
Networks Ignore Missouri Voters’ Rejection of ObamaCare, Instead Celebrate Obama’s Birthday
In the first voter referendum on ObamaCare, Missourians on Tuesday overwhelmingly (by 71 to 29 percent) backed Proposition C which called upon the state to enact a statute to “deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance,”
Paul Krugman Gives Up
A marvelous thing happened over on Paul Krugman’s blog at the New York Times last week. Krugman effectively conceded defeat on a range of economic debates. Who defeated him? People who posted comments on his New York Times blog. Mere commenters.
For those who do not know, Paul Krugman is one of the few who still claim that Keynesian progressivism is the answer to America’s (and