"One nation under corporate greed . . .

with injustice for all but the privileged few"

from Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned by Stephen L. Goldstein It's available in bookstores nationwide, through www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, and other online booksellers. Order it NOW from Amazon (paperback and/or Kindle):  www.amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344306781&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned

"Ever since John Galt and his mafia returned to claim this country as their own, their followers have been drugged on ideas of ruthless freedom. They have turned greed into a national pastime. They treat people like commodities. They dismantled the government, the government that was supposed to represent 'the people,' by exploiting crises. They handed over public assets to private interests because they claimed the government couldn't afford to run and keep them. And once they were in private hands, corporate raiders bled the public of every cent they could. Then, they put their stooges in what was left of government to protect their obscene profits. So, that's where are are today: One nation under corporate greed with injustice for all but the privileged few."

CEOs ruin USA

            The United States is in the middle of a devastating epidemic of “Obsessive CEO Syndrome” (OCS), a debilitating condition in which victims’ are deluded into thinking that the chosen people at the top of organization charts have the best minds, [all ITAL] the answers to [all of our problems, and, should they choose to abandon the rarefied air of their boardrooms, make the best public servants/elected officials.

            In other words, OCS is borderline insanity. So, in order to return the nation to mental health as early as possible, [all ITAL] of us need to be able to recognize the bizarre logic and assumptions of people who may suffer from OCS and know the best protocols to save them—and us, from them. Here are examples of some of their most twisted thinking:

            1. Government can do no good: Most victims of OCS fell under the noxious spell of actor-turn-presidential-impersonator Ronald Reagan—or others who did. For eight years, the best gig of his career—no matinees!—he repeated the mantra that his corporate cronies gave him. But the last time I checked, NASA, the U.S. military, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Hurricane Center were government agencies, among others. Would anyone say they are “no good”?

            2. Business can do no evil: Eve is the patron saint of business. It’s not just a few bad apples; season after season, business reaps harvests of illegalities that are the stuff of daily newspaper headlines: Medicare and Medicaid fraud; securities, investment, and banking crimes; consumer rip-offs; ponzi schemes. Remember Enron?

            3. The Founding Fathers were capitalists who framed the Constitution to promote corporate interests: Contrary to the Sarah-Palin-made-up-classic-comic-book version of America history, our FF’s were largely former British royalist-loyalists, land-and-slave-holding aristocrats who [never ITAL] envisioned this country serving business interests on a scale they could [never ITAL] have imagined.

            4. The government should be run like a business by businesspeople and for the benefit of businesses: Calvin Coolidge observed, “the chief business of the American people is business.” But that doesn’t mean that the government should be taken over by business interests. The [proper ITAL] role of government is to provide a supportive environment in which business can thrive—but not at the expense of the public interest. No matter what they think, the Koch brothers don’t own America.

            5. The private sector creates job, but the public section doesn’t: Hogwash! Most major businesses “create” jobs through government contracts (taxpayer money). Historically, the public sector creates jobs—police, fire, and fire rescue personnel; teachers; members of the armed forces. Believing the unproven claim that for-profit businesses can provide better services more cheaply than government, proponents of privatization want to give them guaranteed revenue streams. More hogwash!

            6. Markets should be self-policed and free of regulation: 1929 & 2008: Nothing need be said!

            7. CEO’s make the best public servants/elected officials: Former CEO-governor Rick Scott has not created the jobs he promised and has violated his oath of office by routinely putting business interests above those of “the people.” When CEO-governor Mitt Romney left office, Massachusetts was 47^th in job-growth, burdened with a $1 billion deficit, and had seen an increase in state and local taxes.

            The cure for OCS is facing reality: Businesspeople know nothing about running government. CEO’s should stick to business, succeed or fail, and stop messing with “the people’s” bottom line.#

                          

Tropical Storm Isaac & Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned

Email Stephen L. Goldstein: trendsman@aol.com
Follow him on Twitter: @drslgoldstein

It's ironic, bordering on prophecy, that Tropical Storm Isaac is threatening Florida NOW, right before the GOP convention. In Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned, a major hurricane devastates the entire Florida peninsula. No one is spared--rich or poor; it is the great leveler. But because in the Corporate States of America, which is what the USA has been renamed in Atlas Drugged, there is virtually NO government as we now know it, people are left destitute and abandoned--unless they can pay to get even basic help. The Florida governor, Chris Cott, and the CSA president, Ham Cooper, hold a joint press conference, telling the world that government has no role in helping people, even at times of unprecedented crisis. In other words, in the dystopia world of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned, the "we don't need government" mantra we hear today is taken to its tragic conclusion. We'll see if all those anti-government members of the GOP will be looking for FEMA to help if Tampa needs it--and if they appreciate the error of their ways.

Atlas Drugged : Ayn Rand Be Damned is available on amazon.com (kindle and paperback), barnesandnoble.com, and in bookstores nationwide. It's a must-read, especially before the election.

BREAKING NEWS: For Toxic Ayn Rand Syndrome: Cure Found

            by Stephen L. Goldstein

           email: trendsman@aol.com

            The following column appeared alongside one by Kingsley Guy in the South Florida Sun-Suntinel, July 20, 2012

            I want to thank Kingsley Guy for the kind words he has to say about my just-released novel, “Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!”; his countervailing “digressions” and oblique tweaks go with the territory. We “duel”; therefore, we dig.

            Of course, Kingsley is correct that the 240 fast-moving (some have said “hilarious”) pages of my dystopia are a frontal attack on Rand’s lumbering, badly written “Atlas Shrugged,” a merciless 1068 pages in my paperback edition. And he accurately states that “Shrugged” is considered “Scripture by libertarians,” a curious label for the work of an atheist but by no means an overstatement: Rand’s acolytes worship her. And yet, her philosophy is nothing more than one woman’s neurotic obsession with legitimizing unbridled greed, sanitizing it by calling it “rational self-interest” and Objectivism—and glorifying it in works of fiction.

            Impressionable high-school students read her with predictable devotion, finding justification for their adolescent pre-disposition to selfishness. What’s worse, many have grown up to occupy influential positions, never breaking free of her spell. When he was 16, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, who ultimately dug the grave of the economy, crashed Rand’s funeral with his mother. University of Chicago Professor Milton Friedman built a whole school of economics compatible with her thinking. The schemers at Enron who were defrauding investors and the public allegedly met in informal discussion groups to draw energy from her works. Fair-haired GOP budget boy Cong. Paul Ryan said Rand inspired him to seek elective office and made his staff members read “Atlas Shrugged,” at least until recently when the devout Catholic first discovered Rand was an atheist. (Can you believe it?) His budget proposal is pure Rand. Less obviously, but more consequentially, the current tea party/GOP in Congress—the Party of No—has been re-enacting John Galt’s “strike” in “Atlas Shrugged,” bringing the economy to its knees to force the country to accept its policies.

            The United States is suffering from Toxic Rand Syndrome: capitalism perverted, the nation in a corporate stranglehold, self-reliance run amok—which is why I called my novel “Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned.” It begins 67 years after “Atlas Shrugged” ends. The USA has been renamed the Corporate States of America, the equivalent of a wholly owned subsidiary of the likes of the Koch Brothers. Kingsley rightly recognizes that it’s a dystopia: a nightmare vision of a future none of us would want to live in—and yet one that seems frighteningly like what we’re enduring today. It’s a difference of degree, not kind. You want a country without strong government, regulations, a social safety net, and solid infrastructure? In “Atlas Drugged,” you get it. But even the most Randian of you won’t want it. Remember New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: helpless victims stranded on rooftops, corpses floating in floodwaters, thousands huddled in the Superdome for days without food and water? That’s mild compared to some of the most horrific scenes in “Atlas Drugged,” which happen to be set in Florida.

            The success of “Atlas Shrugged” proves that, tragically, you can fool too many of the people all of the time. “Atlas Drugged” takes a stab at opening the eyes of enough of the rest who haven’t yet swallowed the Kool-Aid. It’s truthful fiction and fictional truth. Those who are most likely to reject it are precisely those who most need to face it.

            The cure for Toxic Rand Syndrome is "Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!" It's available in bookstores nationwide, through www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, and other online booksellers. Order it NOW from Amazon:  www.amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344306781&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned

Imagine no more USA but Corporate States of America

In scathing/hilarious dystopia Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!, USA is renamed Corporate States of America. Romney/Paul Ryan/Koch Brothers/GOP/corporate tycoon elites/1% have taken over the country.

In Chapter 1, at a public event people recite the Pledge of Patronage instead of the Pledge of Allegiance. To honest, decent members of the 99% the words have a terrifying ring:

"I pledge my patronage to the brand of the Corporate State of America and to the profits which it commands. One Emporium, under Mammon, with liberty and lucre for all." Especially before the November election, READ Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! and watch the struggle between the 1% in power and the 99% trying to regain the country. It's fiction--but eerily like today's reality. It's also a roadmap for retaking the USA in the name of "the people."
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344306781&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned

Home » Blogs » Harley's blog

"Atlas Drugged" a ForeWord Magazine's Best First-Fiction Finalist

Submitted by Harley on Fri, 2012-07-20 15:50

Atlas Drugged, by Stephen L. Goldstein, has been named one of 6 finalists in ForeWord magazine's "Best First-Fiction" contest. According to the magazine's publisher, Victoria Sutherland, the competition "spotlights and honors great books that deserve more attention."  

Kingsley Guy on Atlas Shrugged or Atlas Drugged? from South Florida Sun-Sentinel

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-07-20/news/fl-kgcol-atlas-fri0720-20120719_1_rand-tax-code-stephen-l-goldstein

Atlas Shrugged or Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! Which has the greatest BUZZ?

Follow the buzz about Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!: http://tinyurl.com/crwp3hd

On Firedoglake.com Book Salon: Author Stephen Goldstein discusses Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Stephen L. Goldstein, Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

Email your comments and questions to author Stephen L. Goldstein directly at trendsman@aol.com

Saturday, July 14, 5 p.m.-7p.m. Eastern, join the discussion of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! Here's how:
1--Go to Firedoglake.com, the story will be on the front page
2--If you would like to comment during the live chat, Register a few minutes early at the "Log In" at the top of the page. You'll be emailed a password
3--If you want to just follow along, you'll need to refresh your browser occasionally to see the new comments: PC=F5, MAC=Command + R keys, or any browser has an arrow/button to refresh by the URL bar

Welcome Stephen L. Goldstein (Journalist – SunSentinel) and Host Nicole Sandler (Nicole Sandler Radio – RadioOrNot.com)
Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!
Ayn Rand has become the symbol for today’s right-wing obsession with selfishness. In the half-century since her opus Atlas Shrugged, numerous institutes and societies have sprouted to promote Rand’s philosophy of “objectivism” which teaches the ridiculous ethical egoism and her advocacy of “rational selfishness“.

To a compassionate person, these ideas are truly foreign. In a nation whose Declaration of Independence includes the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and whose Constitution directs the government to provide for the “general welfare” of its people, the Randian philosophy seems at direct odds.

Yet today’s Republican Party is pursuing an agenda that favors the rich at the expense of the needy. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin chairs the House Budget Committee and, as such, has put forth a budget that, over the next decade, would spend about 16 percent less than the White House on “income security” programs for the poor — that’s everything from food stamps to housing assistance to the earned-income tax credit.

Medicare would be privatized as a voucher program, requiring seniors to find health insurance on the open, for-profit market, and reaching into their pockets to subsidize the wholly insufficient amount of the vouchers with which they are supposed to be able to purchase the coverage. Of course, being forced to buy health insurance on the open market also means buying from a company that would use up to 20% (or more, if not reigned in by the Affordable Care Act) of those premiums on overhead (and profit) as opposed to Medicare’s 3% overhead.

The lines between Rand’s vision of an every man, woman and child for his or her self world and that of today’s GOP and Libertarian visions are quite blurred. Congressman Paul Ryan requires his staffers and interns to read Ayn Rand (though he has recently denied this, the Atlas Society has released video of a Ryan address to their membership in which he stated this requirement quite clearly), and Senator Rand Paul (born Randall) is said to have shortened his name in reverence for the author.

Rand’s philosophies are now so far-reaching that one need not read her massive missives to know what it is she and her followers believe – government is bad, the individual is all that matters.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Rand. Although I read The Fountainhead when I was younger, I found it long-winded, boring and something which with I didn’t identify. So when my friend Stephen Goldstein (author, journalist, tv/radio host and South Florida Sun-Sentinel Op-Ed columnist) told me he had written a “sequel” of sorts to Atlas Shrugged, I wasn’t initially very excited.

No, I’ve never read Atlas Shrugged, nor have I ever had a desire to. But I’ve been inundated with the “Who is John Galt?” message – even on an ad for a restaurant here in Coral Springs, FL that I had enjoyed – until I saw the ubiquitous question sniped on an ad in a local monthly magazine. Now I no longer frequent that restaurant. (Sorry, if a local business believes it’s important to promote his religious devotion to Rand’s theory of selfishness, I believe it’s important to not be a customer.)

But after Stephen assured me that one need not have subjected oneself to reading her 1,088 pages of drivel in order to enjoy his new novel, Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!, I jumped in, and was glad I did.

Atlas Drugged picks up where Shrugged left off. Sixty-seven years after John Galt’s “restoration” (revolution for the rest of us). The US has become a Libertarian paradise. No longer the United States of America, we’ve “evolved” into the United Corporations of America.
The divide between the 99% and the 1% is even more pronounced. Tent cities or shanty towns, known as Coopervilles (for then-President Cooper) have popped up in every major city, with the largest having taken over NY’s Central Park.

Government has become today’s right wingers’ wet dream – shrunk small enough to have drowned in a bathtub. The free market reigns so that no longer do governmental agencies exist to protect the citizens. It’s now buyer beware. If a product makes consumers sick, eventually they’ll no longer buy the products. And should a hurricane threaten Florida, there’s a privatized Hurricane center to warn the population … or not. Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! should be the warning shot to all Americans to be careful what you wish for.

In paperback and on Kindle, Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned is available from Amazon: (paperback) http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342287664&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned (Kindle) http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Rand-Damned-ebook/dp/B008L2H2RS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1342287664&sr=8-4&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned, as well as from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/, http://www.hellgatepress.com/ (directly from the publisher) and in bookstores nationwide.

Satire! Prophecy? Haunting! Helen Nash reviews Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

What if corporate billionaires took over the government of the United States? What if the United States of America (USA) became the Corporate States of America (CSA)?

Stephen L. Goldstein explores these questions in his fictionalized vision Atlas Drugged:Ayn Rand Be Damned! Adept and gifted writing creates a tale of allegory, satire, fable, social commentary, and, perhaps, ultimately, prophecy.

Pitting the narcissistic ideology of Ayn Rand against the struggling, Promethean masses, the tale assumes nightmare proportions that will haunt your dreams for many nights...and days. Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! is a five-star Good Read that may strike readers as already borderline reality.

Email your comments and questions to Stephen L. Goldstein, author of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!, directly at trendsman@aol.com

Order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! now. It's available from amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341961789&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned, barnesandnoble.com, hellgatepress.com (the publisher), and from bookstores nationwide.

How can reading a novel do any good? It's just fiction!

Because fiction can be the most powerful way to show reality/reveal the truth. It can change people's minds more quickly than all the facts and figures they may hear or read. During this all-important presidential campaign season, it is crucial that Americans see the truth of what a tparty/GOP/Rmoney/Koch brothers win would mean.

The bestselling, just-released novel Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! is a scathing indictment of the toxic fiction/philosophy of  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Rand's work of FICTION has captured the imaginations of millions of readers--even though it's a totally made-up story. It is the bible of Republicans.

Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! picks up where Rand's Atlas Shrugged ends. It shows how her vision has perverted capitalism into unbridled greed, the corporate takeover of America, and has ALREADY hurt generations of average men, women, and children. But, because Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! is fiction, it can be a warning about "the future," how much worse things will get unless "the people" rise up to stop those who put "profit over people"  and elected officials who let them do it.

Email your comments and questions to Stephen L. Goldstein, author of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!, directly at trendsman@aol.com

Test the TRUTH and POWER of fiction for yourself. Order and read Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!  Then, urge others to do the same. http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340982575&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned

Obama loses! Romney's elected! No! You don't have to wake up to that news!

There's still time to keep it from happening. But you've got to do something simple: Read & spread the word!

Imagine the horror you'll feel if you wake up the day after the election--and Romney's been elected, especially if the teaparty/GOP controls one or both houses of Congress. You'll be besides yourself, too depressed even to get out of bed.

EVEN WORSE: Imagine the horror you'll feel when you realize you could have done something to keep the unthinkable scenario from happening and save the USA from becoming a total corporate state--BUT YOU DIDN'T DO IT!

So rather than live in REGRET, do the best thing you can do NOW to keep Romney from becoming president and the country free of the Koch Brothers--WHILE YOU CAN STILL DO IT.

READ Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!, the short, compelling, highly readable novel that shows you exactly what life will be when the United States becomes the Corporate States of America--and how to keep it from happening. It's fiction, but it bears a striking resemblance to the corporate takeover already under way--but worse, much worse if billionaires get their way after buying Romney & the GOP and demand payback for the money they spent.

Email your comments and questions to Stephen L. Goldstein, author of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!, directly at trendsman@aol.com

Yes! You can keep Romney & the billionaires from winning. Order your copy of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! right now. Read it and urge others to read it and urge others to read it. People power can be more powerful than billionaires' billions!
http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340696537&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned

Spread the word about Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!--or Koch Brothers/GOP/Rmoney will have the last LAUGH

It's ALREADY an underground sensation. Now, help make it a household name!

How would you feel if you knew there was a book that average people would enjoy reading, a compelling novel, but that also revealed the unvarnished truth about the Koch brothers/GOP/Rmoney corporate takeover of the United States, but you didn't read it or urge others to--and Rmoney won? I thought so!

So, here's a serious request: I am asking ALL of you to read Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! (if you haven't ALREADY) done so & urge at least one other person to do the same (read and spread the work). Give a copy as a gift. Ask people to comment about it on Facebook, Twitter, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, everywhere.

Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!--the ONLY work of fiction that TRULY tells it LIKE IT IS: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340631219&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned

For FREE/Read 1st 20 pp/Be on your way to stopping corporate takeover of America: Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

For FREE, read 1st 20 pages of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! on the publisher's website, where you may also order it. It's all of Chapter 1: an introduction to Ayn Rand or refresher course if you've read Atlas Shrugged, as well as the unfolding of the plot of Atlas Drugged.

Atlas Drugged is more than just biting, political satire that skewers the toxic philosophy of Ayn Rand and mugs Atlas Shrugged. It's a potential game-changer in presidential campaign season. I call it truthful fiction/fictional truth because it describes the bad policies of the tea party/GOP/Koch Brothers/Rmoney--and how much worse they'll be if the "bad guys" win in November.

Here's the link to Chapter 1: http://hellgatepress.com/stephen-l-goldstein/atlas-drugged

Watch David Pakman interview me about Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

David Pakman interviews me on his TV show about sham/scam/flim-flam of Ayn Rand & Atlas Shrugged when we talk about Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! http://www.davidpakman.com/2012/06/june-20-2012/

If you haven't already read the underground bestseller Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!, order it NOW from http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/, http://www.hellgatepress.com/ or from your local bookstore. It's THE book to read--and to get OTHERS to read--BEFORE the November election.

On Amazon: Nate Stein Review: Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

"It's About Time!"

I have waited a long time for a book like this to be written. For decades, the world, but primarily the United States, has been lobotomized to believe that the philosophies of Ayn Rand are something to be modeled upon, they're not; we have been told to believe, via Rand's writings, that somehow the markets are god and that they can never do wrong; regulations and workers are something to be dehumanized, etc. These types of irrational ideas and their consequences have never been addressed before, until now. Stephen Goldstein's use of satire and insight provides for a terrific method on how to approach Ayn Rand's flawed arguments of individualism and free market-radicalism. When you read this book, you will laugh, you will be frightened and you'll be banging your head against the wall because the truthfulness will be too hard to bear. I am very grateful for this book.
                                                                                      --Nate Stein
Link: http://www.amazon.com/review/RXJKK3RV0J6J4/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RXJKK3RV0J6J4

David Swanson: Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned="Hilarious" & "Debunking"

Atlas Drugged: A Review

By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/atlas-drugged-review
The Florida Sun Sentinel has for many years been rather unique, as a corporate newspaper with a regular columnist who's actually good, and I don't mean just good for the context, but actually worth reading even if the masses of South Florida weren't reading along.  Happily, they are. 

Stephen L. Goldstein has just published a book, also worth reading, called Atlas Drugged (Ayn Rand Be Damned!)  It's fiction, often hilarious fiction, aimed at debunking the notion that Ayn Randian "free-market" trickle-down crapitalism can coexist with basic human decency.  "This is a work of fiction," says the back cover.  "But any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional.  The names have been changed but, hopefully, not enough to protect the guilty."

In fact, while the book takes rightwingerism to an extreme, it blends in plenty of elements from reality.  Imagine the most outlandish carrying of so-called conservatism to its logical conclusion, and abandoning New Orleans to a hurricane, or watching a fire department stand by while a house burns (because the owner didn't pay the proper fees) fits right in. 

The opening scene is basically a CPAC conference set in a world in which normal had become one of today's CPAC conferences.  The speeches of the fascists who populate this book ought to echo in the reader's head when he or she later hears the speeches of actual politicians, because the former are just slightly exaggerated versions of the latter.

The heroes of the book are part Occupy Wall Street, part Anonymous.  People march by the millions.  They organize and inspire.  They shut down all the department stores owned by a particular plutocrat, simply by "shopping" en masse, without actually buying anything.  But other tactics, from stunts involving animal dung (you have to read it) to hacking into the sound system at important events, rely on a small, secretive band of super-heroes -- too much so, I suspect.  A real revolution is more likely to come through a combination that relies more heavily on popular action and less on the secret heroics of beings who fuse together Julian Assange with the Yes Men and MacGyver.

I also wish there weren't quite so much nationalism in what is after all a fantasy of an ideal future at war with a kleptocratic dystopia.  But if you're going to go all in for the founders and the red-white-and-blue, it would have been better to remember the one thing the founders got most right that we have most forgotten: you don't give a single individual power. You can't solve tyranny through a presidential election, replacing a bad tyrant with a good one.  You have to divide and check power, reducing the president to an impotent executive.  In fact, one would hope that after a couple of centuries we would be able to at least fantasize about moving further toward direct democracy, and away from monarchy.

Be that as it may, it's not as if "Atlas Drugged" is going to move people in the direction of pinning their hopes on presidential candidates more than they already do (a physical impossibility).  It is, however, going to deservedly and comically drag through the mud of its own making the disgustingly stupid idea that greed and selfishness are the smart way to be kind and generous.  The result, I hope and expect, will be a greater ability to spot the absurdity of the political philosophy being satirized.  If THIS is where free-market principles lead, if the catastrophe carved out by the job-creators in this book is what we're consciously attempting to arrive at, then we'd better reject as absolutely evil many of the assumptions and claims we encounter every day in the rhetoric and the policy coming from our politicians, including of course -- this being reality after all -- both of our leading candidates for president.

Now order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342135140&sr=8-1&keywords=atlas+drugged+ayn+rand+be+damned. It's also available from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/, http://www.hellgatepress.com/  (the publisher), as well as bookstores nationwide.

David Swanson's books include "War Is A Lie." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org/ and http://warisacrime.org/ and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org/. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.

Howie Klein: Praise for Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

I'm reading Stephen Goldstein's fantastic new book, Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! which should be the perfect reparative therapy for Paul Ryan's staffers who were forced to read the Ayn Rand novels that he claims animated his political career.

Described as "the long-overdue obituary for the unbridled greed glorified by Atlas Shrugged, I find myself rationing the book so I can savor it without finishing it all in one gulp.--posted on http://www.downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/

You may order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339688257&sr=8-1, BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher http://www.hellgatepress.com/

From Paparazzinc.com: Review of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

From Paparazzinc. Go to http://www.paparazzinc.com/ for FULL review:

Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! Reads like a modern day indictment of the 1% by the 99% with just enough truth to figure out who’s who. A narrow look into the conservative movement blinded by allegiance to the flag, but not the flag you’ve come to know. 

With overtones of the Tea Party or any organization that requires blind obedience, Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! comes at you like a sharpened razor blade through freshly scrubbed sun burned skin. The author, Dr. Stephen L. Goldstein, never lets up. You might be uncomfortable with the content, and we suspect that may be the point of this book of fiction--that perfect world of unbridled greed masked as the status quo. 

Goldstein does a fine job laying out the violations of decency and fairness, but is it fiction? Careful what you wish for. Over the top? Hardly, when you factor in the unbridled greed of Wall Street, the recession, the collapse of the American Dream/Housing, the Tea Party movement, big money donors, the do-nothing Congress and run away capitalism. 

If you’re not asking yourself Where have I seen this before? or if this sounds familiar, connect the dots as you read. Eventually you’ll piece the puzzle together. Go out and buy a copy of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! then loan it to a friend at the next Tea Party event. If you dare! 

Author, journalist, and radio and TV talk show host Stephen L. Goldstein is an op-ed columnist and one of ‘The Dueling Columnists’, for The Sun-Sentinel, Tribune paper in South Florida. The author lives in Florida. 

You may order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339688257&sr=8-1, BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher http://www.hellgatepress.com/

Why I wrote Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! by Stephen L. Goldstein

I wrote Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned, a novel, a work of (what I call) fictional truth/truthful fiction for three compelling reasons: 

1: To save people from reading 1084 pages of unreadable propaganda (in my paperback edition). Unless you are a masochist, you don't have to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged before reading my novel Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!--or remember it if you have. I wrote the first chapter of Atlas Drugged so EVERYONE would be brought up to speed on the ruthless philosophy of Ayn Rand and the broad outlines of Atlas Shrugged.

2: To see if it would be easier to "get through to people" through fiction. Ayn Rand did it. After writing well-researched, fact-based opinion newspaper columns for going on 13 years, I came to the unavoidable, bizarre realization that (too many) people will believe fiction more readily than fact. Tell them that the sky is blue, and they'll tell you it REALLY isn't. Tell them that the sky is chartreuse, and they'll bend over backwards to confirm it--like saying that, after all, at sunset you can see streaks of yellow-green in the sky.

3: To do my part to wake Americans up to the fraud, deception, scam, sham, and flim-flam of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged--right before the 2012 Election. For too long, her work of COMPLETE FICTION has been accepted as ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Too many generations of Americans have used it to justify their acting out of heartless selfishness and greed. Tragically, its free-market philosophy has influenced elected officials and public-policy makers in Congress and the highest levels of government. It has turned the USA into the Corporate States of America, average Americans be damned. I'm not a self-deceiving megalomaniac; but, if enough people read and spread the message(s) of Atlas Drugged, maybe, just maybe, people will begin to see and understand how destructive Ayn Rand and her followers have been--and keep the tea party/GOP from taking over the country in 2012.

You may order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339688257&sr=8-1, BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher http://www.hellgatepress.com/

Tony Smith: Review of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned

Dr. Stephen Goldstein does a brilliant job in "Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!" of giving a fictional, or perhaps frighteningly truthful, look at where unregulated capitalism is leading us today. It's a surreal journey from the founding fathers of the United States of America to Ayn Rand's "Corporate States of America." "Atlas Drugged" reveals the struggle between the wealthy corporate few and the other 99% of Americans, an all-out struggle between good and evil. It is a world where free-for-all economics, as opposed to pure Democratic meritocracy, rules. All for some, but none for ALL.

"Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned" is a must-read wake-up call before the November 2012 General Election, when some will try to elect people who believe in ramming free-for-all economics down everyone's throats. If you love this republic we call the United States of America, read "Atlas Drugged" now.

You may order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339688257&sr=8-1, BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher http://www.hellgatepress.com/

Stephen Merrill: Praise for Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

“Don’t for a minute assume this novel is a highbrow critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, in prose as impenetrable as hers. No, this is a razor sharp attack on the selfish strain in American culture and politics that accounts for the financial crisis, economic disparities, political impasse, and poisonous public discourse. Read this book and you will realize how short a leap it is from 'Occupy' encampments to 'Cooperville, Central Park, NY.' But you will also realize what we all need to do to reverse our disastrous course.”

--Stephen Merrill, economic policy analyst

Order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! NOW: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338056378&sr=8-1

Noted Columnist Anthony Orlando: Review of Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

       "Stephen Goldstein does to Ayn Rand acolytes what Stephen Colbert does to Bill O'Reilly. Atlas Drugged is the most unflinching satire of the Right I've ever read. Goldstein has a mellifluous voice, and he puts it to deliciously ruthless use. Conservatives and libertarians will complain that it's unrealistically over-the-top, and so-called "centrists" will complain that it's unnecessarily partisan, but as shown in recent interviews with and stories about the true Randites in the top 1 percent, this book is closer to nonfiction than...well, than any of us should be comfortable with. And that's the point. You shouldn't be comfortable with the status quo. You shouldn't condone sociopathic greed, much less succumb to it. To do so is to violate the very moral precepts that make our civilization possible. Goldstein's achievement here is to show us a world without those precepts and to challenge us to prevent it from becoming a reality." -- Anthony W. Orlando, South Florida Sun-Sentinel op-ed columnist, Wharton-and-LSE-educated economic historian, and Los-Angeles-based businessman

 You may order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339688257&sr=8-1, BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher http://www.hellgatepress.com/

Enjoy the YouTube video on the "Damnation of Ayn": Even "Queen" & "Pope" weigh in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FESYMufQWjY

Damn the Corporate States of America!

       What was SHE thinking in Atlas Shrugged? How could ANYONE swallow her garbage?

       Thanks Ayn Rand, for giving license to people's worst instincts! Damn the Corporate States of America.

       The role of GOVERNMENT must be as firewall between people & thieving/unethical corps, not as lapdog doing corporate bidding, or we get ENRON, MURDOCH, BAIN CAPITAL, CITIZENS UNITED.

       That's what my new novel, Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned, is ALL about--the nightmare of a world-gone-wild, through unbridled greed that tea party/GOP/Rmoney praise as the American Dream, as bad as it gets, worse than you ever imagined.

       You may order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339688257&sr=8-1, BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher http://www.hellgatepress.com/
      Enjoy the YouTube video on the "Damnation of Ayn": Even "Queen" & "Pope" weigh in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FESYMufQWjY

Excerpt from the novel Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! by Stephen L. Goldstein

Pre-order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned! http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335023029&sr=8-1

Watch "Breaking News" about the damnation of Ayn Rand from The Truth News Network: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FESYMufQWjY

From Chapter 1:

         As a “standby” test-pattern counts down from ten to one, simultaneously

on three giant TV screens in the pavilion, Rooky announces,

“And now, live from the Oval Office of the White House in

Washington D.C., the President of the Corporate States of America,

the Honorable Hamilton ‘Ham’ Cooper.”

          “My fellow profit-seekers, it is my greatest pleasure to speak to

you personally every year at New Atlantis, and especially this year on

the 67th anniversary of the Galtian Restoration. Like every year, it is

important to remember former times, not only with nostalgia, but

with a renewed dedication to the seriousness of our mission. Three

score and seven years ago, John Galt brought forth on this continent

a market-driven nation, conceived in rationality and dedicated to the

proposition that people and profit are never created equal.”

To everyone’s shock, it sounds as though a voice has spoken over

the president saying, “bullshit.” But it happens so quickly no one can

be sure. And the president appears to be unaware of it and doesn’t

miss a beat.

          “Now, we are engaged in a great competitive war, testing whether

our market or any markets so conceived and so financed, can remain

totally free. We are met on a great staging-ground of that war. And

we have come to rededicate ourselves and New Atlantis, so that our

markets, under Mammon, shall have increased infusions of capital—

and that free markets of free-wheeling corporations, by free-wheeling

corporations, and for free-wheeling corporations shall not perish

from the earth.”

Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned!

a novel
by Stephen L. Goldstein

You may order Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand Be Damned from Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Drugged-Ayn-Rand-Damned/dp/1555717098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339688257&sr=8-1, BarnesandNoble.com, or directly from the publisher http://www.hellgatepress.com/

Here is the long-overdue obituary for the unbridled greed glorified by “Atlas Shrugged” and the prophet of profit.

It’s the “Occupiers’” handbook for how the 99% can take back the country from the 1%.

Rand let free-marketers John Galt, Dagney Taggart, and their accomplices return triumphant from their “strike” to remake the world in the image of Godless self-interest.

On the 67th anniversary of the revolution, Atlas has been drugged, Galt’s successors are under attack, and all is in danger of being lost—or is it?

Worlds collide; loyalties divide.

Against the backdrop of the epic struggle between Atlas and Prometheus, “Atlas Drugged” takes no modern-day prisoners and heaps Olympic-size damnation on the losers.

This is a work of fiction. But any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional.

The names have been changed but, hopefully, not enough to protect the guilty.