About Ayn Rand

This is interesting,
a 3:30 vid delving into the connection between Republican philosophy and the Ayn Rand philosophy of "selfishness" which many of the Republicans claim to love.

http://front.moveon.org/?p=7620

Of course it's a bit heavy-handed and it's not like it's going to be embarrassing for these Republicans - they will just say "yes, of COURSE she was a Fascist, we right-wingers actually DO believe that only the strong should survive, there's no secret about that!"

Similarly, a right-wing group could easily make a video that "exposes" Woody Guthrie (or John Lennon, etc.) as a radical Atheist or Communist, and us on the left would similarly say "yes, of COURSE he was a Socialist, we left-wingers actually DO believe that society should be kinder and gentler on humans and on the environment, there's no secret about that!"

I just like the idea of unpacking the basic philosophies out into the open, so they can be examined as the actual opposing philosophies that they are, rather than couched in euphemisms which make the right-wing politicians and left-wing politicians sound more similar than they actually are.

(Yes, they are similar in that they are all in the financial top 1%, and they all want to get as many votes as possible.
Still, there are significant philosophical differences between the right and the left on the massively impact-ful question of whether society includes compassion by definition or not.)