Ayn Rand Archives | Restoring Liberty

The compelling and action packed trailer for the new movie Atlas Shrugged Part 2, puts you on the edge of your seat immediately. It lights up your screen with explosions, political intrigue, plane crashes and high drama. Add to it the discovery of a world changing source of energy; makes this a movie you can’t miss. The trailer also has the fingerprints of veteran movie producer Harmon Kaslow all over it.

Watch the thrilling trailer:

The movie opened nationwide Friday and is based on the huge bestseller written over 50 years ago by Russian emigrant Ayn Rand. Her experience living under a totalitarian regime, lead her to pen a futuristic novel, based on what could happen to our country if conditions lined up, when “Looters Law” was the driving force behind government policy.

Her book has served as a waning to those who believe in capitalism and self responsibility. It has helped shape the political philosophy of many on the right. Even though written years ago, many of the authors’ predictions of a totalitarian society seem to be taking shape, with government in control of key industries, picking winners and losers…And a looters law mentality creeping into the campaign rhetoric of “getting a fair shot.”

I clicked on Fandango to buy tickets, while I picked up the phone to call Harmon Kaslow.

Following is my interview with Harmon Kaslow, Producer of Atlas Shrugged Part 2:

So Harmon, is it by chance that your movie opens 3 weeks before the November Presidential elections? “Absolutely by design! In a capitalistic way we planned to take advantage of the election fervor. This faithful adaptation of the book offers an opportunity for swing voters to see what’s going on back in DC and help activate them to vote President Obama out of office.”

If Ayn Rand were alive today, what would her message be to us this close to Election Day? “People! You better right your ship now! You don’t want to go to part 3 of Atlas Shrugged!”

Not only did you find resistance by Hollywood to help produce this movie, John Aglialoro your partner, producer and financial backer, suffered a huge loss of 19 million from a product liability lawsuit involving his exercise equipment company. You really had to overcome hurdles to get this movie made. “Yes the lawsuit was a real blow and a stark reminder of how the tort system is abused. That 19 million dollar suit will mean thousands of people will lose their jobs. But John brought in other investors to help complete and market our film, he is an amazing man. He aspires to bring Atlas shrugged Part 3 to the screen as well.”

Out of all of the films you have made how does Atlas Shrugged Part II compare to the others? “No comparison! All of my others were original works and or screenplays. Atlas Shrugged is one of the greatest American novels ever written, it was a daunting task to bring the truth to the screen. Fortunately when John read it, it was life changing to him. His focus was to stay true to the books intent; he provided the guidance and vision. My job was the nuts and bolts of it.”

Having such conservative views in ground zero of Hollywood liberal elite, seems you would be an outcast: “Hollywood’s an interesting place. Obviously actors and creative people are very supportive of Obama, when he comes here he scoops up millions. But the studios are public companies and are driven by bottom line profits. They defer a lot in the creative process to those who don’t have a direct economic interest in their corporations-It’s hard to balance their drive to make profitable films.

“In short the studios don’t have the courage of John Aglialoroto produce a movie of this type, faithfully adapting to the principles of this book.”

In the book, a way was found to power a motor with only static electricity. Energy would be cheap and plentiful and the way the world turned would be revolutionized. “The handcuffs put on us by the enormous burden of expensive energy reduce our capacity to be creative. Ironically in this book written over 50 years ago, she shows how transformative to society a cheap source of energy can be by the creative genius unleashed at Galt’s Gulch.”

“Part 3 of Atlas Shrugged will get much more into the sci-fi stuff when it gets produced. In the meantime we are looking forward to millions of people seeing Atlas Shrugged part II to introduce the genius of Ayn Rand to them.”

But until the time we have a breakthrough in technology that makes energy almost cost free, the alternative is to use our own fossil fuels to bring civilization forward. There will be a great debate on this subject coming up November 5 at Duke University. The name of it is McKibben vs. Epstein. Check it out.

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Ed Farnan’s articles are also carried in:

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Once in a while, a politician will say something that really offers you some insight into his state of mind and his worldview. On Friday, President Obama gave a campaign speech that included a portion that really repays close inspection. He made his usual case for raising taxes on the wealthy, and then he said:

The most interesting part of this may well be when Obama says “that’s the reason I’m running for president.” Throughout his campaign speeches, it seems he can really only get excited when he forgets that he actually is the president right now and thus manages to reclaim some of that 2008 excitement he clearly badly misses today.

But the larger theme here is fascinating too. It’s a huge and increasingly a central part of what the Democrats are saying (Elizabeth Warren got lots of applause on the left for saying basically the same thing a few months ago), and it tells us a great deal about what they think they’re up against and what they understand themselves to be championing.

The first thing to say about the president’s argument is that most of it is true, and is very, very obvious. No one would disagree with the specific things he says, except perhaps the vague and strange “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Who? But the president clearly thinks that some people do disagree with his more general point that everyone depends on society. It’s very evident from this passage and from a great deal of what he has to say about his opponents that Obama thinks he is running against a band of nihilistic Ayn Rand objectivists who champion complete and utter radical individualism. That weird notion is also behind the various attempts to link Paul Ryan to Rand, which are pretty amusing if you’ve followed Ryan (for what it’s worth, I would say Ryan thinks Ayn Rand is correct in her analysis of the left, which she believes has drawn the wrong lessons from the death of God, but is incorrect in many of her own prescriptions because she shares the left’s belief that God is dead, but that’s a story for another day…).

The president implies that his opponents don’t think government has any purpose at all, or that laws are necessary for free markets, and don’t recognize the fruits of any common efforts in American history. That’s just ridiculous. I’m sure there are many libertarians who wish Republicans really were radical individualists, but there’s just simply nothing in what Republicans have said or done in our time to support the idea that they are. The Ryan budget, which almost every congressional Republican has voted for, is an attempt precisely to focus the government on achieving what people can’t achieve on their own and on effectively helping the vulnerable and those who cannot help themselves. It envisions a very significant set of public entitlements and programs, in some cases larger than the ones we have now, but tries to bring them into line with the ethic and way of life of our free economy, to make sure they don’t crowd out civil society, and to make them far more efficient and effective than they have been lately. It is a different vision of American life, but not a radically individualist one. It makes for a smaller government on the whole, but it is built on a clear sense that government serves some very crucial purposes. And Republicans are proposing a very gradual path to that vision of America beyond the welfare state. The president would like to imagine that he’s running against radical individualism, but he’s running against some fairly modest reform proposals to avert fiscal catastrophe.

Posts

Interview with Producer of Atlas Shrugged II: “Timed For Election” (+video of trailer)

Obama’s Friday Campaign Speech Reflects the Left’s Intellectual Exhaustion (+video)