Part 7 (1/2)

2 Introduction to Glenn Beck Special: You Are Not Alone, March 13, 2009 This was the episode in which Beck introduced his 9/12 Project, named after the day when the country supposedly stood unified in the war on terrorisotten Man” speech of 1932 also looked back to a lost ti for World War I

3 According to Alexander Zaitchik, Conorance (Hoboken: Wiley, 2010), p 88

4 These were the Beck programs for, respectively, November 17, 2009, and November 30, 2010

5 These quotations are froue of his ”You Are Not Alone” special introducing the 9/12 Project

6 These quotations are frolennbeckcom/content/articles/article/198/21018/

7 Overton Window, p 62 These words are spoken by one of the book's protagonists in an address to a rally modeled after the Tea Party movement Saint Louis Tea Partier: see ”Who Has the Fear,” a post for Septe: hennessysviewcom/2010/09/22/who-has-the-fear/?utn=Feed3A+hennessysview2FXahR+28Hennessy27s+View29

8 Richard Viguerie's e-mail newsletter, ”News from the Front” and later, ”Conservative HQ,” summarizes journalism that is of interest to conservative activists So class” would appear in an article the newsletter referenced; souerie's su Class” had its oebsite: iththerulingclasscom/, the ”Conservative Headquarters for Election Victory 2010”

9 I aelo Codevilla, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (New York: Beaufort Books, 2010), pp 69, 87, 63

10 Ibid, p 31

11 Ibid, pp 54, 66

12 Senator Ron Johnson's affinity for Rand was noted by George Will in his coluhts on the novel's prescience in a video posted to his Facebook page in 2009

13 David Schweikert: see the interview in the Arizona Republic for September 28, 2008 Rich Crawford: see his post for February 5, 2010, at twittercom/21/rickcrawfish/status/8709825148 Rand Paul: see his 2010 book, The Tea Party Goes to Washi+ngton (Nashville: Center Street), p 251

14 Kendra Marr, ”Ayn Rand Goes Mainstrea to Leonard Peikoff's introduction to the 1996 edition of Atlas Shrugged (New York: Signet), p 6

16 These quotations can be found on pages 536, 925, and 937 of the 1996 Signet edition of Atlas Shrugged, in case you care

17 Ibid, p 680

18 Ibid, pp 534, 685

19 From a letter dated January 23, 1958, and reprinted in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, Winter 2007, p 11

20 All these quotations coe that pro,” May 31, 2011

21 We know that Rand used the Great Northern as one of the art's transcontinental rail ereatly admired James J Hill, the Great Northern's founder; and that the present-day Cascade Tunnel, opened in 1929, is nearly eight ed Like the fictional version, passenger trains passing through the Cascade Tunnel used to be required to switch locoine would have built up inside the tunnel and suffocated the passengers

The predecessor of today's Cascade Tunnel was opened in 1900 It had the same problem with locomotive smoke as the later tunnel, and in the winter of 1910 it was the scene of one of the nation's worst-ever railroad accidents, in which an avalanche knocked a sobund passenger train into a ravine, killing ninety-six people Certain details of that real-life incident are strikingly sih-priority train was stalled for days at a town naton (in the novel it's ”Winston”); desperate passengers pleaded with railroad officials to move the train into the nearby tunnel (for shelter from the feared avalanche); railroad officials refused because of the danger of asphyxiation; as the two sides argued, railroad officials passed the buck and tried to evade responsibility; workers walked off the job in droves; and ers were killed soon afterhen the avalanche cae

When the Wellington disaster was still part of living memory, plenty of people blamed it on Rand's heroes at the Great Northern Railway The railroad was eventually absolved froence by the courts But Rand tells us in her fa Business,” thatto worry about in the first place: ”All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessulated econoovernmental intervention into the economy” Disasters that people blame on business will usually, upon scrutiny, turn out to be the responsibility of government

And so Rand seems to rewrite the 1910 disaster in a way that demonstrates this faith She sets it in the Rockies instead of the Cascades; there is no snow and no avalanche; and she cooverned, the railroad is always the victim The reason its special locoh the tunnel is because it's been co politician The reason its e away is not because they are paid poorly, as in the 1910 reality, but because of insane government rules that have taken all the joy out of life One of the stranded passengers, reat political power; he is able to threaten top railroad officials and have the train proceed into the tunnel of desire just like the flesh-and-blood passengers of 1910 wanted And then the passengers are suffocated for his insolence Politics, in short, is what causes train accidents Governers; it i own, corporations would never endanger passengers' lives, ered

For ton disaster, see Ruby El Hult, Northwest Disaster: Avalanche and Fire (Portland, OR: Binfords and Mort, 1960) and Gary Krist, The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche (New York: Henry Holt, 2007) To get up to speed on the history of train wrecks, try Mark Aldrich's Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 18281965 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006)

Chapter 9 He Who 1 The official being quoted is Sir John Gieve ”'Capitalisulators See Little Sign of Change,” Guardian Weekly, August 13, 2010, p 1

2 The classic example is a March 19, 2003, National Review essay by David Fru conservatives eren't on the Iraq war bandwagon A their sins: ”The websites of the antiwar conservatives approvingly cite and link to the writings of John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, Ted Rall, Gore Vidal, Alexander cockburn, and other anti-A is that Frum himself was ultimately pretty much expelled from the movement for his independent conservative ways

It is important to note that a handful of conservatives theer Julian Sanchez, have taken note of this phenomenon, which they mourn as a kind of ”epistemic closure” See Patricia Cohen, ”'Episte Words,” New York Times, April 27, 2010