Atlas Shrugged

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Steve Jobs is very rich and so is his buddy Wozniac. They actually produced something which (1) did not exist previously, (2) is useful to some people and (3) is something people are willing to buy. Are you saying they do not deserved the money they got?

On the other hand there are business men who neither weave nor spin but do manipulate symbols. It is one of the misfortunes of our current economic system that it rewards these non-productive types at least as much (and probably more) as businessmen who actually create something of value. I am not sure what to do about this anomaly. If one regulates business vigorously then it probably will kill inventiveness as well. During the socialist years in Britain, the rate of invention in Britain decreased quite a bit. Apparently nationalizing the the geese that laid golden eggs also killed them.

ruveyn

Yeah I'm sure grandma and grandpa are evil crooks for having retirement funds in the stock market. I admit there are crooks on Wall Street, but a lot of the people on Wall Street are not crooks.

Glenn Beck is just one person in millions, and what is he doing to get the money? He is serving those with the money and the power. He knows fully well that what he's saying is music to the ears of those with money and they pay him. If he was to say something they didn't like he'd be finished quickly.

Beck is one in millions and his money comes from saying what those with money and power want them to say. He can't really say what he wants...

The great problem with the human condition is that we are both tribal and individualistic at the same time.
We strive to excel but we must do it within our collective tribe.

Look at Ayn Rand's architect Roark. He didn't graduate as an architect because he couldn't be bothered learning things he didn't want to.

Then when he did get clients he told them "This is my concept. Take it or leave it!"
He didn't bother trying to win them over with charm or logic.

He saw a woman he liked so he raped her.

Yeah..... great way to start a loving relationship. Not.

Uh, if what you were saying is true, he wouldn't be pissing off George Soros on a daily basis. Your liberals good conservatives bad routine is reminiscent of the book Animal Farm.

Fox News is owned by Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdock, both conservatives. George Soros has absolutely no power over the media mega-moguls. What is it with the George Soros derangement syndrome? I think you need to take a break from Glenn Beck. He's likely frying your brain.

Same thing that got Glenn Beck to start looking into George Soros.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&expIds=172 ... 6c17f79c85

A simple google search.

You have a (very partial) point there. Xenon13 probably should re-evaluate his "homogenously conservative elite" model and replace it with the "high-tech, low labour intensity liberal/low-tech, high labour intensitiy conservative polarized" model of the plutocracy people like Thomas Feurgeuson have devised.



This is hilarious as, on the basis of Beck/Hannity/Limbaugh/your smearing of Obama, referencing or agreeing with something written by a socialist makes you a socialist. Sir Eric Arthur Blair (author of animal farm) was a socialist, so you're a SOCIALIST!! !! !

Funny thing is, the bosses I have worked for that have treated myself and other employees well, tend to be conservatives, the ones that do their best to screw the employees over tend to be liberals. That kind of contradicts your rational doesn't it.



I actually had to read the book in High School, didn't care for it to be honest, just the routine xenon13 seems to follow reminds me of the stupid sheep from that story.

That's because you clearly did not understand the point of it.

The American Right offers the quick, steep plunge into the abyss. The American Centre offers a longer, more gradual slide. There is no American Left of any power.

Thanks for proving my point.

You just can't trust an atheist Jew with the audacity to question the dominant, "laissez-faire capitalism is sacred and holy and must not be questioned" world view of the majority of the self-serving elites. Him being one of the few voices of reason has caused the devout worshippers of unrestrained global capitalism to attack him for his heresy. This is simply a case of Rupert Murdock and Roger Ailes deliberately giving a platform for a mainstream media network to spew wing-nut lunatic conspiracy theories. They want to make anyone who questions their ideology go away. They are playing with fire when they try to get the right-wing evangelicals to think he is the anti-Christ.

Well congratulations on making yourself look like an idiot.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed its concern over the strong criticism that a number of American Jewish leaders and other prominent Jews in recent days have directed at Fox broadcaster, Glenn Beck, for his criticism of Israel/U.S.-basher, financier George Soros, regarding his behavior in Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944.

In that year, George Soros’ father obtained forged papers and bribed a government official to save his son, George, then 14 years old, by taking him in as his alleged godson under a falsified Christian identity. In this capacity, George Soros accompanied his fake godfather on his appointed rounds as a government official, confiscating property from Jews who were to be deported to their deaths in Auschwitz. George Soros later said that he felt no guilt, remorse or difficulty whatsoever for being in this situation. In fact, he wrote in a forward to his father’s book, “these ten months [of the Nazi occupation] were the happiest times of my life ... We led an adventurous life and we had fun together.”


http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressr ... aseID=1968

This is a Jewish Organization siding with Glenn Beck.

“I, myself, am the son of Holocaust survivors who met in a German Displaced Persons camp, where I was born. I know from personal knowledge that my father, whose parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and all eight siblings were murdered by the Nazis, felt constant pangs of guilt about having survived while his family, friends, Jewish neighbors and Jewish brethren were murdered by the millions. Obviously, he bore no moral responsibility at all but, like other survivors, could not escape feelings of guilt, for being the sole survivor, which haunted and plagued my father till the end of his life. As attested to, many times, by clinicians who have studied Holocaust survivors, it is a normal, understandable reaction of those in such situations. It is deeply chilling that Mr. Soros never felt any grief, horror, or guilt over the loss of so much of his Jewish brethren and comfortably proclaims such.



“In light of Soros’ hatred of Israel and the United States; his continuous efforts to harm them; the absence of any subsequent remorse and feeling as an adult over the events he witnesses in Nazi-occupied Hungary as a 14-year old; as well as the fact that Glenn Beck’s comments were essentially accurate, George Soros merits no defense or sympathy from Jewish leaders. We are truly puzzled that some Jewish leaders have chosen to defend this and other Israel-bashers from their critics.”

http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressr ... aseID=1968

So we have a child of holocaust survivors siding with Glenn Beck and essentially calling groups that were bashing Glenn Beck a bunch of idiots. I seriously believe that he is far better qualified to have an opinion on this matter than you or I do.

The "George Soros is teh debbil!" line is pretty funny, especially given that there are so many major and constant right-wing donors amongst the super-rich (the Koch brothers have been getting a bit of airtime for this lately). To dislike a wealthy donor to the opposing side is logical, of course, but a good deal of anti-Soros rhetoric goes beyond this, delving into conspiracy theory and in some cases going perilously close to the image of a sinister socialist Jew behind the scenes, controlling the whole government. There are two ironies that are lost on those who perpetuate this rhetoric: 1) that Soros has bankrolled revolutions to bring democracy to "communist" dictatorships and 2) that Soros has been accused of being a "self-hating Jew" for his left-leaning positions on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

That's not to say that he's an angel, of course; some of his currency trades in the past seem to have been damaging to various economies (although I know nearly nothing on the subject of finance, and cannot comment on the validity of these criticisms). The incredibly hysterical rhetoric against him, though, is just that - hysterical, and not credible.

Also, I'd like to say that as an American Jew it angers me when gentiles step into Jewish politics like they're big-shots and know exactly what's going on, spraying money all over the place and stoking fires that level-headed people have been working hard to quench. The right-wing Christian Zionist organizations are especially guilty in this respect, but they're not the only ones. Non-Jews often do not have the slightest idea about the incredibly thorny social dynamics surrounding Jewish issues, especially Israel and the Holocaust.

The major American Jewish political organizations are mainly right-wing - AIPAC and the ADL being the stars of this group - but that is not true of the majority of American Jews. Spokespeople like Abraham Foxman cannot be taken as the "voice of the Jewish community" on a given issue any more than Noam Chomsky or Norman freaking Finkelstein can. I think it's safe to say that most Jews - even many Jews in Israel - don't fully understand the Israel/Palestine conflict, and right-wing positions on the conflict are easy reactionary positions to take for those who feel scared; going to the organizations who represent that fear in elements of the Diaspora will not provide one with a balanced image of the issues, or of the Jewish psyche on a given issue.

Thus, the ADL or AIPAC or any other large and loud organization disagreeing with someone isn't a yardstick one can use to beat fellow gentiles over the head with - "see, the Jews think George Soros hates Israel! Bla bla bla!" It's just an opinion, and it almost inevitably has major counterweights in the Jewish community at large. These things are contested within the Jewish world as well as without.



As a side comment, one irony that seems to escape right-wing Christian Zionist types is socialism was originally a major force behind Zionism, and that the Labor party and its major leaders - people like Golda Meir - were actually for-reals lefty at one time.

Yanno, Norman Finkelstein is the child of Holocaust survivors too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein
and he for-reals no-kidding supports Hamas.

Pointing out that one child of survivors, or one survivor, thinks something proves nothing. Survivors and their children can be found on all sides of the major Jewish political issues, just as they can be found on all sides of the major Jewish theological debates.