Atlas Drugged Read online

  Atlas Drugged

  Ayn Rand Be Damned!

  By Stephen Goldstein

  Published by L&R Publishing/Hellgate Press/Grid Press

  PO Box 3531, Ashland, OR 97520

  http://www.hellgatepress.com

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  Copyright © 2012 Stephen Goldstein. All Rights Reserved. No content may be reproduced without the express written permission of the author.

  First Edition

  ISBN 978-1-55571-710-0

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  This e-book edition was created at FoliumBookStudio.com

  Dedication

  For Alisa

  Epigraph

  OLYMPIANS VS. TITANS

  In Greek mythology, the Titans ruled the Earth before the Olympians overthrew them. After ten years, Zeus, the head of the Olympians, defeated his father, Cronos, the leader of the Titans. Atlas led the Titans to defeat against Zeus. His brother Prometheus sided with Zeus.

  When the Olympians won the war, Zeus punished Atlas, a selfserving protector of the status quo, by making him hold up the world. Prometheus was delegated by Zeus to create man. And since then, he has always been known as the protector and benefactor of humanity.

  Prometheus gave mankind many gifts, including fire, which he stole from Zeus—and for which he was severely punished. But he never forsook humankind or gave in to Zeus.

  Eventually, Prometheus was freed from his punishment. Atlas never was.

  PROLOGUE

  Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from heaven, That slid into my soul.

  — S. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

  JUNE 3, 10 P.M.: WEST 79TH STREET, MANHATTAN. Bored and frustrated, hunched over, elbows rubbing on his desk, head resting in the palms of both hands, Dan Ryan stares at the blank computer screen. All I need is the first line of my next column and then I can go to sleep, he thinks. I’ve got to get up early so I can watch the masses pay tribute to John Galt tomorrow. But that’s what he’s been saying to himself for three hours and it hasn’t done him any good. His head is spinning like a wheel with a hyperactive hamster in it. He’s tried chanting the mantra he hasn’t used in fifteen years (Could it have expired?), a half hour of yoga, and a hot bath. In desperation, he considers prayer, incantation, and incense. He’s on the verge of giving up—getting into bed and hoping for the best. But he knows himself well enough to know that will never do: at worst, he’ll toss and turn for who knows how long; at best, when and if he settles down and inspiration comes, he’ll have to get up and write something.

  This is not typical of Ryan—and every writer’s nightmare: fear of losing “the spark,” the sine qua non that makes a real writer a writer or a real anybody an anything. He always knows exactly what he’s going to write before he writes it. A columnist, he never suffers from anything as sophomoric as writer’s block. But for some reason, tonight, he’s got no fire in the belly, no burning desire to write about anything or anyone. The hypochondriac in him wonders if he could be dying; the drama king, if he’ll have to become a waiter.

  He keeps replaying the scenes from the day for clues about what’s troubling him and (hope against hope) for inspiration. But this Friday was no different than every other for the past five years, except for those falling on a full moon when all hell breaks loose. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., he refereed the usual political slugfest on his daily radio show, “The Honest Truth,” between guests and their real or imagined ghosts, guests and guests, guests and listeners, and listeners and guests and himself. Like every day, he predicted how the comments would align around the day’s topic, today’s having been “John Galt: Should Atlas Have Shrugged?” The guy he’s dubbed “Fuming Frank,” who calls in every day at 7:15, can always be counted on to rail against the Federal Reserve, even if the discussion is about global warming. Today, he ranted that only the Fed shrugs. “Thanks for sharing, Frank. What about John Galt?” Ryan asked.

  “Is he still alive?” Frank fired back.

  “Have a nice weekend. Goodbye,” Ryan said.

  Predictably, “Platitudinous Pat” took issue with John Galt—“Wasn’t he a vice president?” she asked—and every president going back to Calvin Coolidge, whom she claims as a distant maternal cousin and savior, and to whom she attributes the words of Harry S. Truman: “The buck stops here,” “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen,” and “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Ryan sent her to Bartlett’s. But Pat insisted it’s a Democratic plot to keep Cal, and her family, from getting the respect they’re due.

  He advised “Maxed Out” Maxine, who calls in for financial advice because she’s again reached the limits on her seven credit cards, to wait until 10 a.m. for “Finding Financial Freedom with Francine,” but she said she didn’t like Francine but that Ryan once gave her the best advice she’s ever gotten—though, when pressed, she says she can’t remember what it was.

  No, four hours of mental masturbation five days a week never bore or frustrate or unsettle him or leave him without something to write about. As long as he’s got a mute button on the control panel and a hefty pay check—When will they discover I should be paying them?—he knows he’s got the best thing going. What’s more, he invariably finds the spark for his weekly column from those that fly from the vox populi. So why not now?

  He isn’t unsettled because he’s dreading tomorrow, either, though he probably should be. For one of those “Saturday Specials” that isn’t in his contract for him to cover, but which he gets roped into and accepts to keep the peace and his pay check, he's got to get up at 6 a.m. on his day off, meet up with the crew of his radio show, and drag himself to New Atlantis to cover the 67th Anniversary of John Galt’s saving the nation. He’s done it so many times, it should bore him. But it doesn’t.

  No, if asked, the clearest he would say about what’s keeping him from finding the first line of his column, and the peace he feels he so richly deserves, is that he pictures some troubling, fuzzy, amorphous grayness that gives him a funny feeling in his stomach, like nothing he’s ever felt before, a feeling that could foreshadow impending doom or delight, but without a clear cause. Something’s missing, he thinks.

  Finally, he simply goes to bed. If I can just close my eyes, maybe it will come to me, he thinks, prays, hopes. Cut the crap, he tells his inner demon. Let me sleep. I need the strength of Atlas. I’ve got to be up at 6:00 tomorrow morning and somehow get myself through the day.

  ONE

  CONGREGATE, CONGRATULATE, MISCALCULATE

  SATURDAY, JUNE 4: NEW ATLANTIS, WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK. Some call themselves Galtans. Others prefer Atlantans. Either way, they are all devoted to keeping John Galt alive throughout the year, but especially on the first Saturday of June, every year. It is noon. The sky is cloudless; the sun is intense for late Spring. A line of late model luxury cars is backed up for two miles on the highway south of the main entrance into New Atlantis. The first car waiting to turn in is a red Ferrari. Behind it is a Mercedes limousine. In burnished gold, over massive iron gates, are the words, “There is no evil except the refusal to think.”

  The cars that have already managed to enter are crawling, bumper to bumper. Taggart Drive winds its way up a gentle, shady slope, through a forest of tall, strong oaks as far as the eye can see. Fresh green leaves of late spring create a stately, comforting canopy. Overgrown lilac bushes are everywhere, long ago timed to be in full blossom on this day by Dagny Taggart. They have never dared disappoint. They have grown to be so many and so full that their aroma overpowers. Parking lots are already full. The only spaces left are on the grass.

  Dagny Taggart founded New Atlantis, shortly after she followed John Galt to New
York when he declared, “We are going back to the world.” Like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world, they had shrugged. They had gone on strike to rebel against (what they considered) the socialist destruction of the economy, sequestered themselves in the valley of Atlantis, and eventually overthrew the government. Dagny said she wanted New Atlantis to be her personal investment in keeping alive the success of (what Galt eventually called) the Rational Restoration of America. “A mecca for the mind and self-interest,” she called it, “a place where people of reason can flourish, turn ideas into profit, and never let anyone forget which people are indispensable to the nation.” Publicly, Dagny told everyone it was an act of pure self-interest: to see Galt’s mission continue and thrive. To herself, and only to herself, she confessed it was an act of personal self-interest: to express her devotion to Galt, the only man she ever loved. Upon her death, Dagny left her entire estate to the think tank to manage The Taggart Venture Fund, providing loans to promising profit-making projects.

  First located just on the site of property she bought as her suburban summer home, the campus grew to 400 acres. Year after year, like any rapacious CEO gauging market demand and seizing opportunity, Dagny gobbled up surrounding estates to accommodate the growing community of acolytes who came to New Atlantis to be mentored throughout the year—and carry on Galt’s work throughout the nation and the world. Every year in June, the same month Galt and his followers had met in the valley of Atlantis decades before, the faithful return.

  As cars make their way up Taggart Drive, at strategically placed clearings, passengers see monuments to Galt’s strike and the risks others took with him. At the first turn, on the left, is a vintage diesel engine from Taggart Transcontinental, a reminder of the industrial superpower that had to be destroyed so the old order could be crushed and Galt’s new nation could be born. At the next right is the plane that Dagny flew by accident into the secret valley of Atlantis, the trip that began her momentous conversion to the strike—and love and adoration of Galt. At the next left, there’s a twenty foot expanse of bridge made out of Rearden Metal, homage to the man who next to Galt was the most creative and imaginative of their generation’s industrialists— and to his revolutionary process. And, at the next turn, rests Ragnar Danneskjold’s boat, the menacing “pirate” vessel that brought looters to justice, those who live off other people’s ideas and inventions, the collective enemy Galt and his comrades finally defeated.

  At the crest of the road burns an “eternal” flame, a reminder of Ellis Wyatt’s Torch: the ultimate symbol of one heroic man’s undying devotion to the power and rights of the individual over everything and everyone. Finally, below, in a burst of dramatic sunlight, a vast, open expanse of manicured lawn stretches in a gentle decline to the walls of d’Anconia Pavilion. The octagon-shaped, flying-saucer-like building dominates the landscape. The huge, gleaming, copper roof is supported by blue-green cantilevers of precious Rearden Metal. A massive gold dollar sign is planted in the middle. The walkway leading to the pavilion is made of railroad ties, another reminder of the Taggart railroad empire—and of Dagny’s singlehanded restoration of its intercontinental network after she and Galt returned from the valley. A giant replica of Galt’s revolutionary motor sits before the main entrance into the Pavilion.

  The crowd has been streaming into the 7,000 seat facility since the doors opened at 11 a.m. They parade slowly, wanting to be seen as belonging at New Atlantis. They are dressed as if they were going to church or an afternoon wedding or a luncheon at an exclusive country club. The women wear almost identical, loose fitting, pastel summer dresses. Yellow seems to be the favored color this year. In spite of the warm weather, some wear close fitting hats—berets or turbans. The men wear dark, mostly blue, suits with white shirts and monochrome ties, mostly blue or green. The children, mostly teens, are dressed like their parents. There are hoards of young adults in their twenties, who stand out for not standing out. It’s a living Norman Rockwell mural.

  The lobby is bare except for a towering twenty-four-foot tall, muscular, gold statue of Atlas on a pedestal in the middle. The midday light from a skylight on the gold creates a blinding glare. Legs spread, his right slightly in front of the left, the Titan stands straight, looking up, as though he wouldn’t deign to meet anyone below the heavens eye-to-eye, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. His left hand is pressed against his waist akimbo. His right hand is stretched above his head and out in front of him, lightly bent at the elbow, its palm upturned. His index finger playfully supports a massive, blue-green globe of the Earth, ten feet in diameter, made from Rearden Metal. He gives the impression of a cocky basketball player about to sink a shot he can easily make, but taking his sweet time, spinning the ball just to lord his physical prowess over everyone, the whole world— his opposing teammates, and even his own. This is the ultimate Atlas at the top of his game; a swaggering bully, a poseur, an exhibitionist, a giddy narcissist drunk with power, reveling in himself—and reveling in others reveling in him. On the front of the pedestal are the words, “Drug yourself on self-interest: You can never get enough.”

  After they pay for their $50 tickets—the motto of New Atlantis is “Nothing is for nothing”—people are given a gold plastic dollar sign lapel pin with the number 67 attached to the middle of it and a blue-green plastic bracelet, on which is stamped “To each according to what he produces.” For an extra $25, they can buy a bracelet made out of real, blue-green Rearden Metal, an exact replica of Dagny’s. Business is brisk, though many of the women are wearing those they have purchased in previous years. It’s long been marketed as the best way to “prove” they really belong at New Atlantis.

  On the middle of the three walls at the back of the stage, a 10‘x 20' national flag is mounted—red and white horizontal stripes, a field of blue in the upper lefthand corner with fifty white dollar signs superimposed. Painted in black on the wall to its left are the words, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade.” On the right, “I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” The stage is bare, except for a lectern far forward in the middle, on the front of which hangs a huge gold dollar sign. On the remaining five walls surrounding the audience, stained glass windows carry different messages: “Rational Self-Interest Is Godliness,” “Money Is the Greatest Good,” “There Is No Evil, Except Refusing to Think,” “Mind and Body Are One,” and “There Are No Contradictions. Everything Is As It Seems.”

  Richard Halley’s haunting Fifth Concerto is playing, in the arrangement Dagny first heard. At noon, the pavilion is already half full. For decades, the faithful have returned yearly to renew their vows. But their pilgrimage has been especially meaningful since Galt, Dagny, and their generation have died—and the torch has fallen directly upon their successors. Dagny was the last to die twenty years ago. Every year since then, their heir apparent, Hilton Manfreed, universally celebrated as “The Prophet of Profit” and senior fellow at New Atlantis, has delivered “Manfreed’s Creed,” his annual lecture and status report on the state of politics and the free market. Current and former New Atlantans (his preferred label), along with their families and friends from around the world, have come together to drink their yearly dose of what they all call “rational steroids.”

  At 2 p.m., it is standing room only. Three TV screens outside allow the overflow crowd to watch. The music stops. All at once, the crowd falls completely silent. They are all prepared for the ritual they know so well to begin. Over the loudspeakers comes the familiar voice of Manfreed’s assistant, Baron Rooky.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please stand, salute the flag, and repeat the Pledge of Patronage with me: I pledge my patronage to the brand of the Corporate States of America and to the profits which it commands. One Emporium, under Mammon, with liberty and lucre for all.”

  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 f
rom 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 freewheeling corporations, by freewheeling corporations, and for freewheeling corporations shall not perish from the earth.”

  “From all of us at New Atlantis,” Rooky continues, “thank you, Mr. President. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce a man who truly needs no introduction, an inspiration to us all: Professor Hilton Manfreed.” Bursting into thunderous applause, the audience stands in rapt admiration as Manfreed waddles to the podium. He shows no signs of being the least bit affected by the crowd’s enthusiasm, however. Almost contemptuously indifferent to everything around him, the brainy looking, bald, 4'9", stocky professor deposits a stack of loose papers on the lectern. He towers over the assemblage only once he mounts the booster step put there for him so he can be seen above the microphone.