The strike begins tomorrow

Uggh, Ayn Rand, seriously? I'm sure the teabaggers are lapping that * up.

Was this released to allow the illiterate teabaggers in on the joke?

@ScanIAm: If that was a homophobic, then it's disgusting, and dissapointing posting from rhm. I am still catching up on the lingo, and assume it means a mans "nuts"... I'll see what my search engine says

I happen to have a copy of the book given to me by a friend, and have promised to read it and shall.

Beyond the political aspect, it looks about as exciting as a boardroom meeting.

@vesuvius (and others who might not understand the term):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement#Use_of_term_.22teabagger.22

Most of these folks are Captians of Industry who pulled themselves up by the bootstraps to become Successful people.  They are constantly asked to shoulder the costs of society by the rest of us leeches.  They are taxed enough already!  Ayn Rand is their hero since she wrote extensively about how the world truly belonged to upper management.

They overwhelmingly benefit from a society created by slaves, both figurative and literal.

So, if that turns you on, then it might be sexual, but it's hardly homophobic.

10 minutes ago, dahat wrote

vesuvius has said he has not (yet)... have any of the other 3 of you actually read it?

I was going to torrent it...

That was the funniest trailer I've seen in ages.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD LET ME FINISH SPEAKING

I love how the trailer uses every possible cliche imaginable for movie trailers - jump cuts, dramatic music, zooms - and it still looks amazingly borning.

Horrible human being produces horribly written book to push horrible "philosophy" which results in horrible film.

What a shocking development!

Haven't read any Rand yet, but Atlas Shrugged is on my list.

Also, can we separate the true Ron Paul libertarian "tea party" from the neo-conservative, ultra right-wing, Sarah Palin tea party? I agree almost completely with Paul, but think Palin is an idiot.

@dahat: You had to know this would be a controversial thread, amirite?

Given the income and wealth and job inequities in the USA right now, releasing this film is not the brightest idea the tea party has ever had.

But then, we've got to get our propaganda out in time for the upcoming election, don't we. 

Haha the Lord of the Rings of the libertarian circle, I'm sure it'll be epic beyond compare.

3 hours ago, dahat wrote

*snip*

I’m sorry to see that you decided to respond with a homophobic slur. You are free to see or not see the film, but can we not remain civil?

I did not.

Teabaggers = alertnative name for tea party supporters. e.g. http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/10-lessons-for-tea-baggers

EDIT: and I should add that it's a slang name for tea party supporters because some Republican rerfered to them as that by mistake in a TV interview. Of course you could find all this out yourself using Google before throwing accusations about.

I haven't read the book but found this paragraph from the Wikipedia article on it quite revealing:

Rand's heroes must continually fight against "parasites", "looters", and "moochers" who demand the benefits of the heroes' labor. Edward Younkins describes Atlas Shrugged as "an apocalyptic vision of the last stages of conflict between two classes of humanity- the looters and the non-looters. The looters are proponents of high taxation, big labor, government ownership, government spending, government planning, regulation, and redistribution."^[

But, onto things of a more technical nature...

Hehe, American politics always makes me laugh, it's all very right-wing. You guys would be terrified if you ever had real socialism.

As to the film, it looks bad, very bad. The acting is almost the dictionary definition of wooden and the poor direction isn't helping much either. If it is a good book (no idea, not read it) I'd definitely skip the movie and read instead.

3 hours ago, dahat wrote

Lets see... we have 1 more confirmed haven't read but plan to... and 2 clearly haven't.

Had you read it ScanIAm, you'd know the idea of who "the world truly belonged to" isn't as simplistic as you put it.

Kinda it is.  I haven't read AS, but I did read fountainhead and Rand's writing style was not to my liking.  I've got a good enough grasp of the storyline that I'm not coming from the point of view of a complet idiot on this.  Atlas Shrugged was and is propaganda used by the super-haves to fool the rest of us into thinking that THE PRODUCERS(tm) (i.e. the wealthy and connected) are constantly limited by the rules and norms of society.  The rest of the unwashed masses should be happy to be in their company and eat the crumbs that fall off their table.  And further, any expectation of more results in faux accusations of class warfare.   Sound familiar?

This is the same BS idea that says "hey, for the last decade, we kept taxes on the wealthy at historical lows and that didn't get us any jobs.  What we really need to do is give more tax cuts to the wealthy...then they'll REALLY create some jobs."  And that other hit wonder "If we don't pay C-level executives so much, they'll go elsewhere".

So let them go.

Rand's theory of objectivism is wonderful on paper, but AS has nothing to do with either objectivism or reality.  She was a nasty person who wrote a nasty book to put forth a nasty agenda for small minded ignorant jackholes who think that luck is the same as merit.

And, remember, the rules and norms of socitey are the only thing that keeps the great unwashed masses from dragging THE PRODUCERS(tm) into the street and setting them on fire.  This movie will do nothing to discourage that bad behaviour.