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A friend posted this link on Facebook to Roger Ebert's column in the Chicago Sun Times July 25. Ebert, a cancer-survivor who can no longer speak, articulates his views in print through powerful prose. One of the best and most thoughtful film critics since Andre' Bazin and Pauline Kael, he applies his powers of observation, and critical skills -- indeed his soul -- to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Bravo, Roger, for your organic view of the world that lets you see the bigger picture. Thanks for not calling this the Gulf disaster but the BP disaster.
You only missed one important point: the US Supreme Court just further extended 1st Amendment rights to corporations, granting industry the rights of citizenship through free speech. ??What BP is doing is simply exercising its rights as a really big, powerful, well-connected person. BP is author/philosopher Ayn Rand's vision for America come to life. BP is Howard Roark, the soulless uber-capitalist, today.
Check out director King Vidor's 1949 film version of her book Fountainhead starring Gary Cooper as Roark. I have heard rumors of a remake.
| From The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Gary Cooper as Howard Roark delivers the memorable courtroom speech in self-defense for dynamiting Courtland. |