Mark Potok is a spokesman and director of publications and information for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama, a nonprofit organization that arose from the anti-segregation movement to counter extremism and hate crimes.

He is the editor of quarterly investigative journal Intelligence Report. According to Huffington Post Potok "leads one of the most highly regarded operations monitoring the extreme right in the world today."

He has appeared frequently on the Democracy Now! show.

References

External links

National radio/TV interview with David Pakman about anti-gay hate groups

A podcast interview with Mark Potok, SPLC Intelligence Report director, about anti Latino hate groups

Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Mark Potok from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

"When Right-Wing Extremism Moves Mainstream", an interview of Mark Potok on "Fresh Air" from WHYY, NPR, March 25, 2010, explaining the growth of hate groups in the United States

Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:American editors Category:American civil rights activists Category:Southern Poverty Law Center

{{ infobox person | image = David Icke by Stef (cropped).jpg | image_size = 200px | caption = Icke in 2008 | birth_name = David Vaughan Icke | birth_date = April 29, 1952 | birth_place = Leicester, England | residence = Ryde, Isle of Wight | nationality = | known_for = Football, television sports, books on global politics | occupation = Writer and speaker | years_active = Since 1990 | party = Formerly the Green Party | spouse = Linda Atherton, Pamela Leigh Richards | children = Kerry (1975), Gareth (1981), Rebecca (1991), Jaymie (1992) | parents = Beric Vaughan Icke, Barbara J. Icke (née Cooke) | relations = Trevor and Paul (brothers) | website = davidicke.com }}

David Vaughan Icke (born April 29, 1952) is an English writer and public speaker best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world". Describing himself as the most controversial speaker and author in the world, he has written 16 books explaining his position, dubbed New Age-conspiracism, and has attracted a substantial following across the political spectrum. His 533-page The Biggest Secret (1999) has been called the conspiracy theorist's Rosetta Stone.

Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when he had an encounter in 1990 with a psychic who told him he was a healer who had been placed on Earth for a purpose. In April 1991 he announced on the BBC's Terry Wogan show that he was the son of God, and predicted that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. The show changed his life, turning him practically overnight from a respected household name into an object of public ridicule.

He continued nevertheless to develop his ideas, and in four books published over seven years—The Robots' Rebellion (1994), And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001)—set out a moral and political worldview that combines New-Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of what he sees as totalitarian trends in the modern world. At the heart of his theories lies the idea that a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the Babylonian Brotherhood controls humanity, and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie.

Some of Icke's theories have attracted the attention of the far right and the suspicion of Jewish groups; for example, he has argued that the reptilians were the original authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 1903 Russian forgery purporting to be a plan by the Jewish people to achieve world domination. Icke strongly denies there is anything antisemitic about this claim. He was allowed to enter Canada in 1999 only after persuading immigration officials that when he said lizards, he meant lizards, but his books were still removed from the shelves of Indigo Books, a Canadian chain, after protests from the Canadian Jewish Congress. Icke's problems in Canada became the focus in 2001 of a documentary by British journalist Jon Ronson, David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews.

Personal life and career

Early life and education

Icke was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Icke, née Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. There was a brother, Trevor, seven years older than Icke, and another, Paul, seven years younger. Beric had wanted to be a doctor, but his family had no money, so he joined the Royal Air Force instead. He was awarded a British Empire Medal for gallantry in May 1943 after helping to save the crew of an aircraft that had crashed into the Chipping Warden air base in Oxfordshire. Along with a Squadron Leader, he ran into the burning aircraft, without protective clothing, and saved the life of a crew member who was trapped inside.

After the war, Beric got a job in the Gents clock factory. The family lived in a slum terraced house on Lead Street, near Wharf Street in the centre of Leicester. When Icke was three, they moved to a housing estate known as the Goodwood, one of the massive 1950s council estates the post-war Labour government built, their new home just across the road from the hospital. The family had nothing. "To say we were skint," he wrote in 1993, "is like saying it is a little chilly at the North Pole." He remembers having to hide under a window or chair when the council man came to collect the rent—after knocking, the rent man would walk round the house peering through the windows to see whether anyone was at home. His mother never explained that it was about the rent; she just told him to hide, and Icke writes that he still gets a fright when he hears a knock on the door.

He was always a loner, and felt different from other children, spending hours playing by himself with little steam trains that he had, and preferring to cross the street rather than speak to anyone. He attended Whitehall Infant School, then Whitehall Junior School, where he spent most of his time feeling nervous and shy, often to the point of feeling faint during the morning assembly and having to leave before he passed out. The family doctor suggested a referral to a child psychologist, but his father put his foot down. He made no effort at school and failed at practically everything, but when he was nine, he was chosen for the junior school's football team. It was the first time in his life he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as the only way out of his poverty. He played in goal, which he writes suited the loner in him, and gave him a sense of living on the edge between hero and villain.

Football and first marriage

He failed his 11-plus, a test that was used at the time to divide children between grammar schools, supposedly for the brightest, and secondary moderns or technical schools for the rest, so Icke was sent in 1963 to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern. He left at 15 after being talent-spotted while playing football, and was signed up as a goalkeeper for Coventry City. Arthritis in his left knee—which later spread to the right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists, and hands—stopped him from making a career out of football, but he managed to play for Coventry for four years and Hereford United for one, before retiring from the game in 1973 at the age of 21.

He met his first wife, Linda Atherton, in May 1971 at a dance at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa. She was working at the time as a van driver for a garage in Leamington. Shortly after they met, Icke had another one of the huge rows he had started having with his father—always a domineering man, his father was upset that Icke's arthritis was interfering with his football career—so he packed his bags and left home. He moved into a tiny bedsit and worked in a local travel agency during the day, travelling to Hereford in the evenings to practice or play football. He and Linda were married on September 30, four months after they'd met. Their daughter, Kerry, was born three and a half years later on March 7, 1975, followed by a son, Gareth, on December 12, 1981, and another son, Jaymie, on November 18, 1992.

Journalism

team. Clockwise from top left: Francis Wilson, Debbie Rix, David Icke, Nick Ross, Selina Scott, Frank Bough.]] He found a job in 1973 as a reporter with the weekly Leicester Advertiser, through a contact who was a sports editor at the Daily Mail, though he writes that he got the job because he was the only applicant. He advanced quickly through local radio to television, and became a regional sports presenter for the BBC's South Today in 1982, around the time his first son was born, and the year he moved to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, somewhere he had always wanted to live. He appeared on the first edition of British television's first national breakfast show, Breakfast Time, on January 17, 1983, presenting the sports news for them until 1985. He published his first book in 1983, It's a tough game, son! about football and how to break into it. He worked for BBC Sport until August 1990, often as a stand-in host on Grandstand and snooker programmes, and also at the 1988 Summer Olympics, but a career in television began to lose its appeal for him; he wrote in Tales from the Time Loop that he found television workers insincere, shallow, and vicious, with rare exceptions.

His contract with the BBC was terminated in 1990 when he refused to pay his poll tax, a controversial new tax introduced by Margaret Thatcher. He ended up paying it in November 1990, but his initial announcement that he was willing to go to jail rather than pay prompted the BBC, by charter an impartial public-service broadcaster, to distance itself from him.

Green Party

At some point during the 1980s, he began to flirt with fringe medicine and New Age philosophies in an effort to find relief from his arthritis.

Sessions with a psychic healer

Icke writes that it was when he was working for the Green Party, and particularly while he was writing the book in 1989, that he began to feel a presence around him, as though there was always someone else in the room, even when he was alone. He writes in Days of Decision (1993) that it was a time of considerable personal despair for him, though he gives no details. In March 1990, he had an experience in a newsagent's that felt as though a magnetic force was pulling his feet to the ground, and he heard a voice tell him to look at a particular section of books. One of the books was by Betty Shine, a psychic healer, or channeller, in Brighton. He decided to visit her to ask for help with his arthritis. She told him she had a message for him, that he was a healer who had been sent to heal the Earth, and who would become famous but would face enormous opposition, but that they would always be there to protect him. , Peru, that Icke said he had a pivotal mystic experience in February 1991.]]

In February 1991, Icke travelled to Peru, where he visited the pre-Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno. He writes that he felt drawn to a large mound of earth, at the top of which lay a circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle, he felt his feet pulled to the earth as if by a magnet, just as he had experienced in the newsagent's in Ryde, and an urge to outstretch his arms. His feet started to vibrate and burn, his head felt as though a drill was passing through it, and he felt two thoughts enter his mind: first, that people will be talking about this in 100 years, and then, "it will be over when you feel the rain." He said his body started shaking as though plugged into an electrical socket and new ideas began to pour into him. Time became meaningless, he writes, and he has no idea how long he stood there, arms outstretched. Then it started raining, and the experience ended as suddenly as it had begun. He described it later as the "kundalini"—a term from Indian yoga describing a libidinal force that lies coiled at the base of the spine—exploding up through his spine, activating his brain and his chakras, or energy centres, triggering a higher level of consciousness.

He returned to England and began to write a book about the experience, Truth Vibrations, published in May that year. At a Green Party conference in Wolverhampton on March 20, 1991, before the book appeared, he resigned from the party, telling them he was about to be at the centre of "tremendous and increasing controversy," and winning a standing ovation from them after the announcement.

Turquoise period

What followed became what Icke calls his "turquoise period." He began to wear only turquoise because, he explained, it is a conduit of positive energy. He had met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic living in Calgary, Alberta, in August 1990, and after he returned from Peru, he struck up a relationship with her, which became close and led to the birth of a daughter, Rebecca, in December 1991. At one point, Shaw moved in with him and his wife. Shaw had changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's wife became known as Michaela, an aspect of the Archangel Michael, and they became known in the press as the "turquoise triangle," though Icke insisted that he and Shaw were just friends. He answered reporters' questions about the relationship with, "if you resonate on this higher level then you see not two ladies, but two bodies with energy patterns."

In March 1991, a week after resigning from the Green Party, he, his wife, and Deborah/Mari held a press conference to announce that he had become a "channel for the Christ spirit," a title conferred on him by "the Godhead." He said the world would end in 1997, preceded by a number of disasters. There would be a severe hurricane around the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, eruptions in Cuba, disruption in China, a hurricane in Derry, and an earthquake on the Isle of Arran. Los Angeles would become an island, New Zealand would disappear, and the cliffs of Kent would be under water by Christmas 1991. He said the information was being given to the three of them by voices and automatic writing. In In the Light of Experience (1993), Icke wrote that, at the time he gave the press conference, he didn't feel in control. He heard his voice predicting the end of the world, and was appalled by what he was saying. "I was speaking the words," he wrote, "but all the time I could hear the voice of the brakes in the background saying, 'David, what the hell are you saying? This is absolute nonsense'." His predictions were splashed all over the next day's front pages, to his great dismay.

Terry Wogan interview

for an interview on April 29, 1991, during which Icke declared that he was the son of God. He said his children were devastated afterwards, because their dad had become a figure of ridicule. He later said he had been misinterpreted, and that he had used the term "the son of God" to mean an "aspect" of the infinite consciousness. The interview proved devastating for him. As the audience laughed, Wogan memorably pointed out that they were laughing at him, not with him, and his humiliation seemed complete. He disappeared from public life, and for several years was unable to walk down the street without people pointing at and mocking him. His children were followed to school by journalists and ridiculed by schoolmates, and his wife would open the back door to get the washing in, only to find a camera crew filming her. Icke told Jon Ronson:

One of my very greatest fears as a child was being ridiculed in public. And there it was coming true. As a television presenter, I'd been respected. People come up to you in the street and shake your hand and talk to you in a respectful way. And suddenly, overnight, this was transformed into "Icke's a nutter." I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.

The BBC was criticised for allowing the interview to go ahead, Des Christy in The Guardian calling it a "media crucifixion." Wogan interviewed Icke again in 2006, acknowledging that his comments had been a bit sharp,

Key ideas

Icke's core ideas are put forward in four books—The Robots' Rebellion (1994), And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001)— self-published by his Bridge of Love Publications or David Icke Books. Discussion about the nature of consciousness is intermingled with unsourced allegations against named individuals, including that certain senior politicians are Satanic paedophiles, and that the Swine flu vaccinations are a deliberate attempt to cull the world's population. He argues that human beings are the result of a breeding program conducted by a race of reptilians called Anunnaki from the Draco constellation, and that what we call reality is nothing but a "five-sense illusion," or holographic experience. The only reality is the realm of the Absolute. He believes in a collective consciousness that has intentionality; in reincarnation; in other possible worlds that exist alongside ours on other frequencies; and in acquired characteristics, arguing that our experiences change our DNA by downloading new information and overwriting the software. We are also able to attract experiences to ourselves, by means of good and bad thoughts.

Global Elite

Icke argues that humanity was created, and is controlled, by a network of secret societies run by an ancient race of interbreeding bloodlines from the Middle and Near East, originally extraterrestrial. Icke calls them the "Babylonian Brotherhood." The Illuminati, Round Table, Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the IMF, United Nations, the media, military, science, religion, and the Internet are all Brotherhood created and controlled. The Brotherhood is mostly male. Their children are raised from an early age to understand the mission; those who don't are pushed aside. Key Brotherhood bloodlines are the British House of Windsor, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, European royalty and aristocracy, and the Eastern establishment families of the United States. At the apex of the Brotherhood stands the "Global Elite," identified throughout history as the Illuminati, and at the top of the Global Elite stand the "Prison Wardens." The goal of the Brotherhood—their "Great Work of Ages," or the "Brotherhood Agenda"—is world domination and a micro-chipped population.

In The Robot's Rebellion (1994), Icke introduced the idea that the Global Elite's plan for world domination was first laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax published in Russia in 1903, which supposedly presented a plan by the Jewish people to take over the world. The Protocols is the most influential piece of antisemitic material of modern times, portraying the Jewish people as cackling villains from a Saturday matinee, as Jon Ronson puts it, widely drawn on by the far right and neo-Nazi groups. Mark Honigsbaum writes that Icke refers to it 25 times in the book, calling it the "Illuminati protocols," and it is the first of a number of examples of Icke moving dangerously close to antisemitism, according to Michael Barkun of Syracuse University.

Reptilians and shape-shifting

from Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, 1690]] In The Biggest Secret (1999), Icke introduced the "Reptoid Hypothesis." He identifies the Brotherhood as originating from reptilians from the constellation Draco who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. They are the same race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, Enûma Eliš. Tyson Lewis of Montclair State University and Richard Kahn of Antioch University Los Angeles write that Icke has taken his "ancient astronaut" narrative from the Israeli-American writer, Zecharia Sitchin. Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is also not new, though Barkun writes that Icke has done more than most to expand it.

Sitchin writes that the reptilians came to Earth for its precious metals. Icke argues that the Anunnaki came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, the Anunnaki are able to process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human form. They use human fear, guilt, and aggression as energy in a similar way, part of the reason they organise human conflict. The more negative emotion we emit, the more the reptilians absorb. "Thus we have the encouragement of wars," he writes, "human genocide, the mass slaughter of animals, sexual perversions which create highly charged negative energy, and black magic ritual and sacrifice which takes place on a scale that will stagger those who have not studied the subject."

The Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines carefully chosen for political reasons. He believes they are the Watchers, the fallen angels, or "Grigori," who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha. Their first reptilian-human hybrid, possibly Adam, was created 200,000–300,000 years ago. There was a second breeding program around 30,000 years ago, and a third 7,000 years ago. It is the half-bloods of the third breeding program who today control the world, more Anunnaki than human. They have an extremely powerful, hypnotic stare, the origin of the phrase to "give someone the evil eye," and their hybrid DNA allows them to shapeshift when they consume human blood. In Children of the Matrix, he expanded his description of those in charge, adding that the Anunnaki also bred with another extraterrestrial race called the "Nordics," on account of their blond hair and blue eyes, to produce a race of human slave masters, the Aryans. The Aryans retain many reptilian traits, including cold-blooded attitudes, a desire for top-down control, and an obsession with ritual, lending them a tendency toward fascistic militarism, rationalism, and racism.

Lewis and Kahn write that, with the Nordic hypothesis, Icke is mirroring standard claims by the far right that the Aryan bloodline has ruled the Earth throughout history. For Icke, Sumerian Kings and Egyptian pharaohs have all been Aryan reptilian humanoids, as have 43 American presidents and the Queen Mother, who he writes was "seriously reptilian." All have taken part in Satanic rituals, paedophilia, kidnapping of children, drug parties and murder, needed to satisfy their reptilian blood lust, which allows them to retain their temporary human form. The reptilians not only come from another planet, but are also from another dimension, the lower level of the fourth dimension, the one nearest the physical world. Icke writes that the universe consists of an infinite number of frequencies or dimensions of life that share the same space, just as television and radio frequencies do. Some people can tune their consciousness to other wavelengths, which is what psychic power consists of, and it is from one of these other dimensions that the Anunnaki are controlling this world—though just as fourth-dimensional reptilians control us, they are controlled, in turn, by a fifth dimension. The lower level of the fourth dimension is what others call the "lower astral dimension." Icke argues that it is where demons live, the entities Satanists summon during their rituals. They are, in fact, summoning the reptilians. Barkun argues that the introduction of different dimensions allows Icke to skip awkward questions about which part of the universe the reptilians come from and how they got here. The incidents allow the Elite to respond in whatever way they intended to act in the first place, a concept Icke calls "order out of chaos," or "problem-reaction-solution". There are few, if any, public events that are not engineered, or at least used, by the Brotherhood in their bid to sow division and centralise power. He suggested that the 1996 Dunblane massacre, for example, was organised by the Elite to strengthen gun laws:

Red Dresses

In Infinite Love is the Only Truth (2005), Icke introduces the idea of "reptilian software." He says that there are three kinds of people. The highest level of the Brotherhood are the "Red Dresses." These are "software people," elsewhere called "reptilian software," or "constructs of mind," without consciousness, without free will. Their human bodies are holographic veils. A second group, the so-called "sheeple"—the vast majority of humanity—have what Icke calls "back seat consciousness." They are conscious, but they do whatever they are told and are the main source of energy for the Brotherhood. They include the "repeaters," the people in positions of influence who simply repeat what other people have told them. Doctors repeat what they are told in medical school and by drug companies, teachers repeat what they learned at teacher training college, and journalists are the greatest repeaters of all. The third group, by far the smallest, are those who see through the illusion; they are people like Neo from the film, The Matrix. They are usually dubbed dangerous or mad. The "Red Dress" genetic lines keep obsessively interbreeding to make sure their bloodlines are not weakened by the second or third levels of consciousness, because consciousness can rewrite the software.

Reception

Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Holocaust

cites this cartoon, "Rothschild" (1898), by Charles Léandre, arguing that Jews have long been depicted as lizard-like creatures out to control the world.]]

Icke's criticism of Judaism, his reliance on the Protocols, questioning of the Holocaust, and claims about Jewish involvement in the "Global Elite," have attracted the attention of Jewish groups, who fear that his talk of lizards wanting to rule the world is a smokescreen for claims about Jews. Journalist Louis Theroux cautions against accusing him of antisemitism, arguing that it might not only be unfair, but may also lend a patina of seriousness to his ideas. Icke strongly denies that his reptiles represent Jews, calling the claim "friggin' nonsense." "There is a tribe of people interbreeding," he told Jon Ronson in 2001, "which do not, do not, relate to any earth race ... This is not a Jewish plot. This is not a plot on the world by Jewish people".

Icke introduced the idea in The Robot's Rebellion that the Global Elite's plan for world domination was first laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax published in Russia in 1903, supposedly a plan by the Jewish people to take over the world. Parts of it were serialised in a Russian newspaper in 1903, and it was published in English throughout the U.S. in 1920 by The Dearborn Independent, Henry Ford's weekly newspaper, becoming mixed up with conspiracy theories about anti-Christian Illuminati, international financiers, and the Rothschilds, a powerful Jewish dynasty involved in banking. After it was exposed as a hoax, Michael Barkun writes that it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s.

Icke's use of the Protocols in The Robots' Rebellion was greeted with dismay by the Green Party's executive, who argued that his book promoted fascist and antisemitic views. They had allowed Icke to address the party's annual conference in 1992, despite the controversy over his "son of God" interview, but in September 1994 they decided to deny him a platform. Icke wrote to The Guardian protesting the party's decision, denying the book was antisemitic, and arguing that racism, sexism and prejudice of any kind were horrific and ridiculous, but in the same letter, he insisted that whoever wrote the Protocols "knew the game plan" for the 20th century. Barkun argues that Icke is trying to have it both ways—offended by the allegation of antisemitism, while "hinting at the dark activities of Jewish elites," Icke explicitly blames a ruling Jewish clique for the first and second world wars and the rise of Hitler—and indeed writes that Hitler's father was a Rothschild—and in And the Truth Shall Set You Free, he appears to flirt openly with Holocaust denial. Alick Bartholomew of Gateway, Icke's former publisher, told journalist Mark Honigsbaum in 1995 that an early draft of the book contained material questioning the Holocaust, and that Icke was dropped because of it. The September 2004 edition still contains material in chapter seven that is arguably revisionist. Sam Taylor writes in The Observer that, having read the chapter in question, he does not believe Icke is antisemitic, but argues that he is "tapping into a seriously paranoid, aggressive strain in U.S. society."

Honigsbaum writes that Combat 18, the British neo-Nazi group, publicised a 1995 talk Icke gave at Glastonbury in its magazine, Putsch. The talk was understood as antisemitic both by Combat 18 and by the Isle of Avalon Foundation, the New Age group that had promoted Icke's tour, which not only disowned him, but started handing out leaflets in protest at his presence. Perhaps unfairly projecting its own views onto Icke, Putsch wrote that Icke had talked about "the big conspiracy by a group of bankers, media moguls etc.—always being clever enough not to mention what all these had in common." Icke dismisses Combat 18's attentions, writing that it is a front for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Mossad.

Protests in Canada

Icke was detained by immigration officials when he tried to enter Canada in 1999, after Ontario's Hate Crime Unit added his name to an all-ports watch list because of complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress. The officers combed his luggage and reading material for evidence of antisemitic material. Jon Ronson writes: "Finally, after four hours of questioning, they concluded that when David Icke said lizards, lizards was what he meant."

While his lecture in a downtown Vancouver theatre attracted an audience of 1,200—attended, according to Icke, by the head of the Hate Crimes Unit—his books were removed from Indigo Books, and several venues on his speaking tour were cancelled. Human rights lawyer Richard Warman, working at the time for the Canadian Green Party, took credit for much of this in an interview with Jon Ronson for the latter's documentary, David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews (2001), in which Ronson catalogues the cancelled radio interviews and book signings that Warman appears to have engineered. In response, Icke's Children of the Matrix (2001) reportedly accused Warman of being an Illuminati "gatekeeper," and of working to stop the exposure of child abuse, which triggered a statement of claim from Warman.

Place within the conspiracism genre

Improvisational millennialism

of Syracuse University writes that Icke is the most fluent of the conspiracy writers. Barkun calls Icke's work "improvisational millennialism," with an end-of-history scenario involving a final battle between good and evil. Because everything is connected in the conspiracist world view, every source can be mined for links, and the greater the stigma attached to an idea, the more attractive it becomes, because the vehemence with which the mainstream rejects it becomes a measure of its validity. For Icke, therefore, the widespread ridiculing of the lizard theory is a guarantee that there's something to it, Barkun argues.

According to Barkun, Icke has actively tried to cultivate the far right. In 1996, he spoke to a conference in Reno, Nevada, alongside opponents of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act—which mandates background checks on people who buy guns in the United States—including Kirk Lyons, a white nationalist lawyer who has represented the Ku Klux Klan. Barkun argues that the relationship between Icke, the militias, and the Christian Patriots is complex because of the New Age baggage Icke brings with him, and he stresses that Icke is not actually a member of any of these groups, but it is nevertheless true that Icke has absorbed the world view of the radical right virtually intact. "There is no fuller explication of its beliefs about ruling elites than Icke's," he writes. Icke regards Christian patriots as the only Americans who understand the truth about the New World Order, but he also told a Christian patriot group: "I don't know which I dislike more, the world controlled by the Brotherhood, or the one you want to replace it with."]] Tyson Lewis and Richard Kahn see Icke as a spiritual philosopher, arguing that it's not clear he believes in the reptilians himself. They write that he has produced an extraordinary, all-inclusive narrative, a consolidation of all conspiracy theories into one massive project with unlimited explanatory power. There is an almost obsessive-compulsive element to his writing, they argue, whereby he ferrets out any minutiae he can find to support a narrative structure that allows him to pole vault from ancient Sumer to modern America in a way that "defies the laws of academic gravity."

His work cuts across political, religious, cultural, and socio-economic divisions, uniting the political left and right—they write that his lectures might see neo-Nazis and Christian Patriots sitting next to 60-something UFO buffs and New Age earth goddesses—and as such he represents a truly global counter-culture and should not, they argue, be dismissed as fringe. He has lectured in 25 countries, his books have been translated into eight languages, his website gets 600,000 hits a week, and his lecture tours attract thousands. The Biggest Secret has gone through six reprintings since 1999, and Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster is a top-five seller in South Africa.

They argue that the lizards may be allegorical, a Swiftian satire intended to demonstrate the emergence of a global fascist state. In Children of the Matrix, Icke writes that, that if the reptilians did not exist, we would have to invent them. "In fact," he says, "we probably have. They are other levels of ourselves putting ourselves in our face." He argues, "We are the reptilians and the 'demons' and, at the same time, we are those they manipulate because we are all the same 'I'." Lewis and Kahn make use of Douglas Kellner's distinction in Media Spectacle (1995) between a reactionary clinical paranoia, a mindset dissociated from reality, and a positive, progressive, critical paranoia, which uses the culture of suspicion to question and confront power. They argue that Icke displays elements of both, writing that what they call his "postmodern metanarrative" may be politically empowering, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative structure with which to question what they see around them.

Works

;Books

It's a Tough Game, Son!. Piccolo Books, 1983. ISBN 0330280473

It Doesn't Have To Be Like This: Green Politics Explained. Green Print, 1989. ISBN 1854250337

Truth Vibrations. Gateway, 1991, 1994. ISBN 1858600065

Love Changes Everything. Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 1855382474

In the Light of Experience: The Autobiography of David Icke. Time Warner Books, 1993. ISBN 0751506036

Days of Decision. Jon Carpenter Publishing, 1993. ISBN 1897766017

The Robot's Rebellion. Gateway, 1994. ISBN 1858600227

Heal the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Personal and Planetary Transformation. Gateway, 1994. ISBN 1858600057

...And the Truth Shall Set You Free. Bridge of Love Publications, 1995. ISBN 0953881059

I Am Me, I Am Free: The Robot's Guide to Freedom. Truth Seeker, 1996, 1998. ISBN 0952614758

Lifting the Veil: David Icke interviewed by Jon Rappoport. Truth Seeker, 1998. ISBN 0939040050

The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World. Bridge of Love Publications, 1999. ISBN 0952614766

Children of the Matrix. Bridge of Love Publications, 2001. ISBN 0953881016

Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster. Bridge of Love Publications, 2002. ISBN 0953881024

Tales from the Time Loop. Bridge of Love Publications, 2003. ISBN 0953881040

Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion. Bridge of Love Publications, 2005. ISBN 0953881067

The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy (and how to end it). David Icke Books Ltd, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9538810-8-6

Human Race Get Off Your Knees—The Lion Sleeps No More. David Icke Books Ltd, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9559973-1-0

;DVDs and videos

Speaking Out: Who Really Controls the World and What We Can Do About It

David Icke: Turning of the Tide (1996)

The Reptilian Agenda (1999) (DVD)

David Icke: Revelations of a Mother Goddess

David Icke: The Freedom Road (2003)

David Icke: Secrets of the Matrix, Parts 1–3 (2003) (DVD)

David Icke, Live in Vancouver: From Prison to Paradise (2005) (DVD)

Freedom or Fascism: The Time to Choose (2006) (DVD)

David Icke: Big Brother, the Big Picture, (2008) free Internet Video

Beyond The Cutting Edge (2008) (DVD)

''David Icke Live at the Oxford Union Debating Society

''Secret Space

''Secret Space 2

See also

Erich von Däniken

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa

List of people who have claimed to be Jesus

Notes

References

David Icke's website

Barkun, Michael (2003). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, University of California. ISBN 0-520-23805-2

Cowley, Jason (2000). "The Icke Files,' The Independent on Sunday, October 1, 2000.

Channel 5 Television (2006). David Icke: Was He Right?, December 12, 2006, YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Evans, Paul (2008). Interview: David Icke, New Statesman, March 3, 2008.

Gillis, Charlie (2008). "Righteous Crusader or Civil Rights Menace?", Macleans, April 9, 2008.

Greenslade, Nick (2004). "The ten worst sportsmen in politics", The Observer, September 5, 2004.

Grossman, Wendy (1991). "Green Party Cofounder Icke Goes New Age", Skeptical Inquirer, January 1, 1991.

Honigsbaum, Mark (1995). "The Dark Side of David Icke", London Evening Standard, May 26, 1995, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (1983). It's a tough game, son!. Piccolo Books.

Icke, David (1989). "Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights?", Royal Institute of Great Britain, YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (1993). In the Light of Experience, Warner Books.

Icke, David (1993). Days of Decision. Jon Carpenter Publishing.

Icke, David (1995). And the Truth Shall Set You Free. David Icke Books; the edition used in this article, September 2004.

Icke, David (1999). The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World. David Icke Books.

Icke, David (2002). Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster, Bridge of Love Publications.

Icke, David (2003). ''Tales from the Time Loop. David Icke Books.

Icke, David (2005). Infinite Love is the Only Truth. Bridge of Love Publications.

Icke, David (2007). The David Icke Guide to the Global Conspiracy. David Icke Books.

Icke, David (undated). "Problem-reaction-solution", News for the Soul, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (undated). David Icke part 1, part 2, Davidicke.com, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (undated). Was Hitler a Rothschild?, DavidIcke.com, accessed December 12, 2010.

Jabbari, Dorsa (1999). "U of T provides accused anti-Semite with mike", Varsity News, October 12, 1999, accessed December 12, 2010.

Kraft, Frances (1999). "New Age speaker set to talk in Toronto", The Canadian Jewish News, October 7, 1999, accessed December 12, 2010.

Laming, Donald (2003). Understanding Human Motivation: What makes people tick. Blackwell. ISBN 0631219838

Lewis, Tyson and Kahn, Richard (2005). "The Reptoid Hypothesis: Utopian and Dystopian Representational Motifs in David Icke's Alien Conspiracy Theory", Utopian Studies, Vol. 16, accessed December 12, 2010.

Mitchell, Ben (2006). "This much I know", interview with David Icke, The Observer, January 22, 2006.

Offley, Will (2000a). "Selected Quotes Of David Icke", PublicEye.org, Political Research Associates, February 23, 2000, accessed December 12, 2010.

Offley, Will (2000b). "David Icke And The Politics Of Madness: Where The New Age Meets The Third Reich", PublicEye.org, Political Research Associates, February 29, 2000, accessed December 12, 2010.

Ronson, Jon (March 17, 2001). "Beset by lizards, part 1", part 2, extracts from Ronson's book, Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Guardian.

Ronson, Jon (2001). "David Icke, the Lizards, and the Jews" 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, 5/5, Channel 4 Television, UK, YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Spargo, John (1921). The Jew and American Ideals. Harper & Brothers.

Steyn, Mark (2008). I am Warman, hear me roar!, Steynonline.com, January 27, 2008.

Taylor, Sam (1997). "So I was in this bar with the son of God...," The Observer, April 20, 1997.

Theroux, Louis (2001). "Stranger than fiction: Are 12ft lizards running the world?", The Guardian, April 7, 2001.

Warman, Richard (2002). Statement of claim against David Icke, Court File No. 02-CV-237691 SR, Ontario Superior Court of Justice, October 17, 2002, accessed December 12, 2010.

Whitney, Nicole (undated). "Interview with David Icke", News for the Soul, 2004, accessed December 12, 2010.

Wogan, Terry (1991). David Icke interviewed by Terry Wogan, 1991 and again in 2006, BBC, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Protocols of the Elders of Zion, accessed December 12, 2010.

Further reading

DavidIcke.com, accessed December 12, 2010.

Banyan, Will. Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster">"The Big Picture" A review of Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster (pdf) Paranoia Magazine, October 2003, accessed December 12, 2010.

Lewis, Tyson and Kahn, Richard. Education Out of Bounds: Reimagining Cultural Studies for a Posthuman Age. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Shermer, Michael. Illuminati, The New World Order & Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists (PCTs), The Skeptic's Dictionary, accessed December 12, 2010.

;Audio/video

Britton, Fern (1991). Interview with David Icke, 1/3, 2/3, 3/3, BBC's Coast to Coast People, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David. Presenting snooker, BBC, 1980s, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Icke, David (1989). Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights?, Royal Institute of Great Britain, Arena, BBC2, courtesy of YouTube, accessed November 15, 2009.

Icke, David (2009). Live at the Oxford Union, June 10, 2009, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Maher, Bill (2008). Interview with David Icke, Religulous, courtesy of YouTube, accessed December 12, 2010.

Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:British television presenters Category:British sports broadcasters Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:UFO conspiracy theorists Category:British writers Category:Coventry City F.C. players Category:English footballers Category:Association football goalkeepers Category:Hereford United F.C. players Category:The Football League players Category:English occult writers Category:People from Ryde Category:People from Leicester Category:Independent politicians in England Category:English writers Category:English political writers Category:Environmental skepticism Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:Religious skeptics Category:Anti-globalist activists Category:Self-declared messiahs

Name	Paul Kurtz
Birth date	December 21, 1925
Birth place	Newark, New Jersey, United States
Known for	Committee for Skeptical InquiryCouncil for Secular Humanism
Alma mater	New York UniversityColumbia University

Paul Kurtz (born December 21, 1925 in Newark, New Jersey) is best known for his prominent role in the United States skeptical community. He has been called "the father of secular humanism." He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vasser, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for Social Research.

Kurtz has published of over 800 articles or reviews and has authored and edited over 50 books. Many of his books have been translated into over 60 languages world-wide. Among his most important are "The Transcendental Temptation," "Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Secularism," , "The Courage to Become," and "Multi-Secularism: A New Agenda." His published bibliography of writings from 1952 to 2003 runs to 79 pages. (See "Media-Graphy: A Bibliography of the Works of Paul Kurtz, 1952-2003" Center for Inquiry, 2004.)

He is founder and past chairman of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)), the Council for Secular Humanism, the Center for Inquiry and Prometheus Books. On May 18, 2010, he resigned from all these positions. Moreover, the Center for Inquiry accepted his resignation as chairman emeritus and board member, the culmination of a years-long "leadership transition," thanking him "for his decades of service" while alluding to "concerns about Dr. Kurtz’s day-to-day management of the organization."

At the Council of Secular Humanism's Los Angeles conference (7-10 October 2010), tension over the future of humanism was on display as Kurtz urged a more accommodationist approach to religion while his successors argued for a more adversarial approach.

He was editor in chief of Free Inquiry magazine, a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism. He was co-president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Humanist Laureate and president of the International Academy of Humanism. As a member of the American Humanist Association, he contributed to the writing of Humanist Manifesto II. Former editor of The Humanist, 1967-78. The asteroid (6629) Kurtz was named in his honor.

Early years

Kurtz received his bachelor's degree from New York University, and the Master's degree and Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University. Kurtz was left-wing in his youth, but has said that serving in the United States Army in World War II taught him the dangers of ideology. He saw the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps after they were liberated, and became disillusioned with Communism when he encountered Russian slave laborers who had been taken to Nazi Germany by force but refused to return to the Soviet Union at the end of the war.

Secular humanism

Kurtz was largely responsible for the secularization of humanism. Before Kurtz embraced the term "secular humanism," which had received wide publicity through fundamentalist Christians in the 1980s, humanism was more widely perceived as a religion (or a pseudoreligion) that did not include the supernatural. This can be seen in the first article of the original Humanist Manifesto which refers to "Religious Humanists" and by Charles and Clara Potter's influential 1930 book .

Kurtz used the publicity generated by fundamentalist preachers to grow the membership of the Council for Secular Humanism, as well as strip the religious aspects found in the earlier humanist movement. He founded the Center for Inquiry in 1991. There are now some 40 Centers and Communities worldwide, including in Los Angeles, Washington, New York City, London, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Moscow, Beijing, Hyderabad, Toronto, Dakar, Buenos Aires and Kathmandu.

In 1999 Kurtz was given the International Humanist Award by the IHEU.

Kurtz believes that the nonreligious members of the community should take a positive view on life. Religious skepticism, according to Paul Kurtz, is only one aspect of the secular humanistic outlook.

On 18 May 2010 the Boards of Directors of the Council for Secular Humanism, its supporting organization, the Center for Inquiry, and another supported organization, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, issued a statement announcing that it accepted Dr. Kurtz's resignation as chairman emeritus, as a member of each board, and as editor in chief of FREE INQUIRY.

Neo-Humanism

On March 2, 2010 Kurtz issued a new "Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and Values: Personal, Progressive, and Planetary."

The Paul Kurtz Lecture Series

In June of 2010 the State University of New York at Buffalo announced the establishment of the Paul Kurtz Lecture Series. The series will bring notable speakers to the University's campus in Amherst, New York to speak on topics relevant to the philosophy of humanism and philosophical naturalism. Kurtz made the bequest and charitable gift annuity to the University, where he taught from 1965 to 1991, to help aid the development of critical intelligence of future generations of UB students. On November 5, 2010 the University announced that cognitive scientist Steve Pinker would inaugurate the new Paul Kurtz Lecture Series on Dec. 2, 2010.

Eupraxsophy

Kurtz coined the term eupraxsophy (originally eupraxophy) to refer to philosophies or lifestances such as secular humanism and Confucianism that do not rely on belief in the transcendent or supernatural. A eupraxsophy is a nonreligious lifestance or worldview emphasizing the importance of living an ethical and exuberant life, and relying on rational methods such as logic, observation and science (rather than faith, mysticism or revelation) toward that end. The word is based on the Greek words for "good", "practice", and "wisdom." Eupraxsophies, like religions, are cosmic in their outlook, but eschew the supernatural component of religion, avoiding the "transcendental temptation," as Kurtz puts it. Although critical of supernatural religion, he has attempted to develop affirmative ethical values of naturalistic humanism. Kurtz's Eupraxophy, then, is a practical analysis of morality that has much in common (if it is not identical to) the philosophy behind the Science of morality.

==Critique of the paranormal==

Another aspect in Kurtz’s legacy is his critique of the paranormal. In 1976 CSICOP started Skeptical Inquirer, its official journal. Like Martin Gardner, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, James Randi and others, Kurtz has popularized scientific skepticism and critical thinking about claims of the paranormal. Kurtz wrote:

[An] explanation for the persistence of the paranormal, I submit, is due to the transcendental temptation. In my book by that name, I present the thesis that paranormal and religious phenomena have similar functions in human experience; they are expressions of a tendency to accept magical thinking. This temptation has such profound roots within human experience and culture that it constantly reasserts itself.

In The Transcendental Temptation, Kurtz analyzes how provable are the claims of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad as well as the founders of religions on American soil such as Joseph Smith and Ellen White. He also evaluates the antics of the most famous modern psychics and what he believes are the fruitless researches of parapsychologists. The Transcendental Temptation is considered among Kurtz's most influential writings.

On 19 April 2007 Kurtz appeared on Penn & Teller's television show Bullshit! arguing that exorcism and Satanic cults are "hype and paranoia."

Bibliography

Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz (Tim Madigan, editor; Vern Bullough, Introduction), 1994, Transaction, ISBN 1-56000-118-6

The Humanist Alternative (Paul Kurtz, editor), 1973, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-013-8

Exuberance: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life 1978, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-293-4

A Secular Humanist Declaration 1980, ISBN 0-87975-149-5

, 1986 ISBN 0-87975-645-4

A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology (Paul Kurtz, editor), 1985, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-300-5

Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Humanism, 1988, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-455-5

The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge, 1992, Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-766-3

The Courage to Become, 1997, Praeger/Greenwood, ISBN 0-275-96016-1

Living Without Religion: Eupraxophy ISBN 0-87975-929-1

In Defense of Secular Humanism ISBN 0-87975-228-9

Challenges to the Enlightenment: In Defense of Reason and Science by Paul Kurtz, et al., 1994 ISBN 0-87975-869-4

Skepticism and Humanism: The New Paradigm, 2001 ISBN 0-7658-0051-9

Science and Religion by Paul Kurtz, et al., 2003 ISBN 1-59102-064-6

Affirmations: Joyful And Creative Exuberance, 2004 ISBN 1-59102-265-7

What Is Secular Humanism?, 2006 ISBN 1-59102-499-4

Embracing the Power of Humanism, 2000, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0-84769-966-8

Humanist Manifesto 2000, 2000, ISBN 1-57392-783-X

See also

American philosophy

Center for Inquiry

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Council for Secular Humanism

Critical thinking

Eupraxsophy

Free Inquiry (magazine)

Humanist Manifesto II

Prometheus Books

Secular Humanism

Scientific skepticism

List of Jewish scientists and philosophers

List of Jewish American philosophers

List of American philosophers

References

Madigan, Timothy J. (ed.). Promethean love: Paul Kurtz and the humanistic perspective on love. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006. xii, 327 p.

External links

Paul Kurtz page at the Council for Secular Humanism site

A Vigorous Skeptic of Everything but Fact The New York Times, June 19, 2002 (requires registration)

Citation of Rationalist International Award 2000 to Paul Kurtz

A critical 1981 article about Kurtz and CSICOP by a former colleague and CSICOP board member

What is Secular Humanism?, speech by Paul Kurtz to the Freethought Association

In Defense of Eupraxophy by Paul Kurtz, Humanism Today Vol 6, 1991.

Eupraxsophy Revisited by Paul Kurtz, republished from Free Inquiry Magazine, Vol 24, Num 6, June/July 2006

Category:Atheist philosophers Category:Atheism activists Category:American atheists Category:American humanists Category:American skeptics Category:American philosophers Category:People from Newark, New Jersey Category:People from Buffalo, New York Category:Columbia University alumni Category:New York University alumni Category:University at Buffalo faculty Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:1925 births Category:Living people

Name	Lou Dobbs |
Birthname	Louis Carl Dobbs |
Birth date	September 24, 1945 |
Birth place	Childress, Texas, U.S. |
Death date	|
Death place	|
Spouse	Debi Lee Roth-Segura |
Occupation	Talk radio hostCurrent Fox Business Network News Anchor Former CNN News AnchorFormer Managing editor|
Salary	|
Networth	|
Website	Lou Dobbs Tonight |
Footnotes	|
Credits	Lou Dobbs Tonight|
Website	http://loudobbs.com/|

Louis Carl "Lou" Dobbs Dobbs also acknowledged, via a spokesperson, that he is also considering a run for the United States Senate in New Jersey in 2012.

Background and family life

Born in Childress County, Texas, Dobbs is the son of Frank Dobbs, a co-owner of a propane business, and Lydia Mae (née Hensley), a bookkeeper. When Dobbs was 12, his father's propane business failed and the family moved to Rupert, Idaho. He attended Minico High School in Minidoka County, where he played tackle on the football team and served as student body president. Although accepted at the University of Idaho and Idaho State University, he was persuaded by the staff at Minico High to apply to Harvard University, where he was accepted and later graduated from with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1967. Dobbs resides on a horse farm in Sussex County, New Jersey.

Departure and founding of Space.com

Dobbs repeatedly clashed with Rick Kaplan, who became president of CNN in 1997. Dobbs said Kaplan, noted friend of then president Bill Clinton, was "clearly partisan" and "was pushing Clinton stories," while Kaplan said Dobbs was "a very difficult person to work with."

Return to CNN

Kaplan left CNN in August 2000, and Dobbs returned the following year, at the behest of his friend and CNN founder Ted Turner, becoming host and managing editor of the new and initially more general news program Lou Dobbs Reporting, which later became CNN News Sunday Morning. He also regained the helm of the newly renamed Lou Dobbs Moneyline (which became Lou Dobbs Tonight in June 2003).

Radio

, Dobbs hosts Lou Dobbs Radio on United Stations Radio Networks. The three hour daily show has been working on lining up affiliates in major markets, including its flagship station (WOR) in New York City, Washington D.C. (WHFS), Miami (WZAB-AM) and the San Francisco Bay Area (KDOW), as well as stations such as WGNY-AM in Newburgh, New York. The show is guest-centered and features political discussion and listener calls. It airs from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern, directly competing with The Sean Hannity Show and Dr. Laura. Dobbs also hosts the financially themed Lou Dobbs Minute on the same network.

In June 2008, Dobbs reached an agreement with Business TalkRadio Network to carry a rebroadcast of the show from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern, displacing Bruce Williams. Dobbs's show is also carried live on CRN Digital Talk Radio Networks, on CRN4.

Dobbs was among the hosts who tried out for the position vacated by the cancellation of Imus in the Morning on WFAN, a position that was eventually filled by Boomer and Carton in the Morning. Dobbs mentioned on his radio show that he is currently seeking a position in the Department of Treasury during the economic crisis. He stated that he believed he could "do more good than the clowns currently in position."

Dobbs also hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report, and is a regular columnist in Money magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and the New York Daily News. Dobbs left CNN with about 30 years of service to the network. His departure came less than two weeks after an incident in which a shot was fired at his home.

In July 2009, controversy around Dobbs began when he was the only mainstream news anchor to give airtime to the birther conspiracy theory. Several liberal advocacy groups, including Media Matters, and the Southern Poverty Law Center criticized Dobbs for his reporting. The controversy eventually caused CNN President Jon Klein to rein Dobbs in via an internal memorandum. In September, advocates challenged Dobbs for appearing at a FAIR conference (Federation for American Immigration Reform), a leading anti-illegal immigration group. Multiple campaigns were launched, including Drop Dobbs (NDN, Media Matters), and Basta Dobbs (Presente.org).

The campaigns also attacked CNN for alleged hypocrisy towards Latinos, citing CNN's "Latino in America" special as incompatible with their continued support of Dobbs. The campaigns generated considerable anti-Dobbs press, and are credited by some as pushing Dobbs out.

Dobbs was reportedly paid $8 million in severance pay when he left CNN prior to his contract being due for renewal.

Since his resignation from CNN, Dobbs has made regular appearances to discuss issues on other news network programs including CNBC's The Kudlow Report and Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor. Dobbs continues to broadcast his American radio show and publish his syndicated column.

Future show on Fox Business Network

On November 10, 2010, Fox Business Network announced that Dobbs will host a show on the channel starting some time in 2011.

Political views

In his early career Dobbs was known as a fiscal conservative. He is a critic of the "excesses of capitalism," which he identifies as globalization, offshore outsourcing, runaway film production (the outsourcing of Hollywood jobs), illegal immigration, free trade deals, corporate/big business influence in government and the Bush administration's tax cuts. He describes himself as an advocate of economic populism, warning that outsourcing and the U.S. trade and budget deficits threaten the American middle class. Dobbs tends to oppose long-run trade deficits and outsourcing for the sake of labor arbitrage to obtain cheap labor.

In the 2000s, Dobbs has used CNN programs and columns to express his personal views on several subjects. He has become particularly noted for two positions: Dobbs is a critic of American immigration policy and expanded international trade. He is particularly wary of outsourcing and off-shoring, especially with China. He was a known political figure in New Jersey, with a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll finding that he had a 70% name recognition among New Jersey voters in January 2010. Among these voters, 22% had a favorable view of Dobbs while 22% had an unfavorable view.

Illegal immigration and border security

Dobbs has been strongly opposed to both illegal immigration and such labor-outsourcing and foreign worker programs as the H-1B visa program and guest-worker programs. He has been a critic of the Mexican government's poverty programs, and of church leaders in Mexico for not criticizing the Mexican government's policies on border security and illegal immigration.

Lou Dobbs Tonight frequently featured themes of "Exporting America," "Broken Borders," and "War on the Middle Class". The newscast often described illegal immigration as an "invasion." Dobbs dismissed concerns about his rhetoric as "political correctness" in the segment billboarded "P.C. Nation".

In his "Broken Borders" segments, Dobbs focused primarily on the southern border with Mexico and the drugs and the people who cross it. Dobbs has lauded the Canadian government for cooperation in securing the border with their American counterparts.

In an interview with Lesley Stahl, Dobbs spoke about his meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, saying they implied that he was anti-Hispanic by asking him, "if [he had] ever eaten a taco before, for God's sake". Representative Joe Baca, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, later wrote to CBS insisting that the group did not meet with Dobbs to discuss whether he'd eaten Hispanic food, "but to respectfully recommend that he cease the negative portrayal of Hispanics...and treat the issue of immigration in a responsible manner."

Some of the reporting on the show has been criticized including a claim that illegal aliens were responsible for bringing 7,000 new cases of leprosy to the United States in a three year period, but the actual timeframe was over the last thirty years, according to James L. Krahenbuhl, the director of the National Hansen’s Disease Program.

Dobbs has criticized local officials for their approach to border security. In October 2007 he labeled then New York Governor Eliot Spitzer an "idiot" for advocating the issuance of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Hillary Clinton labeled Dobbs' illegal immigration segments as having "all that hot air."

On October 5, 2009, a bullet struck Dobbs's home as Dobbs and his wife stood outside it. The bullet struck the vinyl siding of their attic and fell to the ground without penetrating the vinyl. Dobbs attributed the incident to his stance against amnesty for illegal immigrants. The New Jersey State Troopers' account of the incident attributed to a stray bullet from a hunter in the vicinity.

In December 2009, Dobbs stated in an interview with Telemundo that he now supports a plan to legalize undocumented workers.

Other views

Lou Dobbs is a registered Republican. Though he made a donation of $1,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign in January 2001, he often has described the Bush administration and the then Republican-controlled Congress as "disgraceful." He has also argued that both parties are controlled by corporate interests. Dobbs faulted Bush's 2004 presidential election opponent, Democrat John Kerry, for first criticizing outsourcing and then backing off.

Lou Dobbs is pro-choice, opposes gun control and, though he is a fiscal conservative, supports some government regulations, as revealed in a 60 Minutes interview. He has been critical of trade policies that he says encourage "sending jobs overseas".

Dobbs' stance on trade has earned plaudits from some trade union activists on the traditional political left, while his stance on immigration tends to appeal to the right.

Dobbs is the author of War on the Middle Class, in which he claims that both Democrats and Republicans are harming the middle class. In it, he comes out strongly against the Bush tax cuts, which he argues favor the wealthy, and argued for raising the U.S. minimum wage from what was then $5.15 an hour.

Dobbs criticized the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 begun by President George W. Bush and later continued by President Barack Obama. He called it originally a "Wall Street bailout", a term which became common. Dobbs described the program as the way for U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to help corporate interests instead of helping average Americans. He expresses many of his views in the documentary Generation Zero.

Controversies

Dobbs' critics, including columnist James K. Glassman, author of Dow 36,000 and member of the American Enterprise Institute think tank, have accused him of inciting xenophobia. Others have accused him of Hispanophobia, a charge he denies and one which he has said offends him deeply, as his wife Debi Segura is a Mexican-American.

Dobbs has also been criticized for his journalistic ethics by liberal news journalist Amy Goodman. She accused him of flagrant errors in his reporting and his staff's association with disreputable sources, complaining that "he has a special responsibility to rely on facts and to correct misstatements of fact."

A CNN report, filed by Christine Romans for Dobbs's April 14, 2005 program, reported on the carrying of diseases across the border by illegal immigrants. Romans' report cited an article in the spring 2005 issue of the non-indexed Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, written by Madeleine Cosman, which made the statement that 7,000 cases of leprosy had emerged in the United States within the previous three years (2002–2005), an increase attributed mostly to an influx of immigrants into the country. Critics of the program argued that, in fact, the actual number of leprosy cases had reached 7,000 in the registry over 30 years, not the previous three years, with 137 cases reported in 2006. In addressing the leprosy issue, Dobbs in May 2007 compared his critics from the left and right political spectrums to "commies" and "fascists." On December 4, 2007, Dobbs rejected Cosman's claims as unsubstantiated, calling her "a wackjob".

On the May 23, 2006 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs's program displayed a map of Aztlán sourced to the controversial Council of Conservative Citizens. CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson apologized for the graphic's use, saying: "A freelance field producer in Los Angeles searched the web for Aztlan maps and grabbed the Council of Conservative Citizens map without knowing the nature of the organization. The graphic was a late inclusion in the script and, regrettably, was missed in the vetting process." In March 2009, Dobbs thought that there shouldn't be a St. Patricks Day In mid-2009, Dobbs was criticized by some in the media for invoking "conspiracy theories" by questioning the constitutionality of Barack Obama's presidency due to his supposedly ambiguous citizenship. His willingness to raise the "birther" issue repeatedly even though CNN itself considered it a "discredited rumor", led the Washington Post's TV critic to remark that this "explains their upcoming documentary: 'The World: Flat. We Report -- You Decide.'" The issue had come up in 2008 during the Presidential campaign, and had largely disappeared from the media spotlight until Dobbs picked up the issue again. His statements in support of these investigations were dubbed "racist" and "defamatory" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The controversy led to Media Matters airing ads critical of Dobbs and of CNN, and to Jon Stewart mocking Dobbs on the satirical The Daily Show. The New York Times said that Dobbs had "become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and hosted a show that seemed to contradict the network's 'no bias' brand." As a result, he became a frequent target of MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann's Worst person in the World.

Shortly afterwards, Dobbs announced that he would broadcast two episodes of Lou Dobbs Tonight from the "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" conference in Washington, D.C., organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-illegal immigration advocacy group. Media Matters also criticized this move, citing FAIR founder John Tanton's history of making racist remarks and supporting white supremacist organizations. Media Matters president Eric Burns issued an open letter to CNN vice president Jonathan Klein, asking that the network take action against Dobbs. "Mr. Dobbs represents an ongoing threat to CNN's credibility as a serious news organization, in no small part because of his polemical coverage of immigration issues and his continued use of his CNN show to lend prominence to groups such as FAIR", wrote Burns. "The attention and legitimacy he gave to the 'birther' movement — and CNN's condoning of his actions — did real damage to that credibility. His participation in the upcoming FAIR rally would do further, serious damage. We urge you to finally acknowledge that Mr. Dobbs' actions in this and other contexts are inconsistent with the reputation that CNN strives to maintain."

In October 2010, The Nation published the results of a yearlong investigation detailing undocumented workers who had worked on Dobbs' personal properties. The labor involved upkeep of Dobbs' multimillion-dollar estates in New Jersey and Florida, including the horses belonging to his daughter, Hillary, a champion show jumper. The article featured interviews with five immigrants who had worked without papers on Dobbs' properties. Dobbs and his daughter had declined to comment to The Nation as part of the story. Speaking to the Associated Press, Dobbs referred to the article as "a political assault," claiming it's a lie that he hired illegal immigrants. He said: "I have never, do not now, and never will."

Awards

Dobbs has won numerous major awards for his television journalism, most notably a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award and a Cable Ace Award. He received the George Foster Peabody Award for his coverage of the 1987 stock market crash. He also has received the Luminary Award of the Business Journalism Review in 1990, the Horatio Alger Association Award for Distinguished Americans in 1999 and the National Space Club Media Award in 2000. The Wall Street Journal has named Dobbs "TV's Premier Business News Anchorman". In 2004, Dobbs was awarded the Eugene Katz Award For Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration by the Center for Immigration Studies and in 2005 he received the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's Statesmanship Award. Dobbs was named "Father of the Year" by the National Father's Day Committee in 1993.

Books

Lou Dobbs, Independents Day: Awakening The American Spirit (2007). ISBN 978-0-670-01836-9.

Lou Dobbs, Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas (2004). ISBN 0-446-57744-8.

Lou Dobbs, Space: The Next Business Frontier with HP Newquist (2001). ISBN 0-7434-2389-5

Lou Dobbs, War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back (2006). ISBN 0-670-03792-3.

Ron Hira and Anil Hira, with foreword by Lou Dobbs, Outsourcing America: What's behind Our National Crisis and how we can reclaim American Jobs. (AMACOM), American Management Association, (May 2005). ISBN 0-8144-0868-0.

References

External links

Official website

Category:American anti-illegal immigration activists Category:American columnists Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:Harvard University alumni Category:People from Childress County, Texas Category:People from Sussex County, New Jersey Category:Seattle, Washington television anchors Category:American broadcast news analysts Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:People from Minidoka County, Idaho

Jared D. Lee (born August 19, 1943), an artist, cartoonist and illustrator, was born and raised in Van Buren, Indiana. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1966 from The John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis. In 1970, after serving two years in the military and working one year at Gibson Greetings as a greeting card designer, he started his freelance career as an artist and cartoonist.

Lee's work has been associated with entities such as the US Postal Service, New York Telephone, L.L. Bean, Procter and Gamble, Ralston Purina, Lands' End, Bell South, Hasbro, Scholastic Publishing, Simon & Schuster, and Dutton Children's Books. He was one of the six illustrators chosen to create the first group of Happy Meal boxes for McDonalds.

Lee has illustrated over eighty books for young readers, and is best known for his collaboration with author Mike Thaler on the best-selling Black Lagoon series, including The Teacher from the Black Lagoon. Mr. Lee also creates and produces a humorous line of T-shirts and gift items featuring horses, sold throughout the United States and abroad. His lifelong interest and involvement with horses and ponies alike led to the collaboration with actor/model/author Carson Kressley on the book You're Different and That's Super.

He has received awards from the Society of Illustrators, The Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana Library Association, The National Cartoonist Society, and numerous advertising clubs.

Memberships include the Society of Illustrators, and Illustrators' Partnership.

Personal life

Lee's home and studio are in Southwest Ohio where he lives with his wife, P.J.. He has two grown daughters, Jana and Jennifer, who are each married and live in the same area. He lists his late father Gerald as his hero, saying "he didn't know much about art but he always encouraged me to draw." His favorite athletes are Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong. Jared is an avid college basketball fan and is a long-time season ticket holder to the University of Cincinnati Men's basketball games. He continues to be involved in the horse and pony world, owning one American Saddlebred and three ponies of the Hackney Pony breed. They are shown by his daughter Jana.

Category:1943 births Category:Living people

Name	Janet Napolitano
Office	3rd United States Secretary of Homeland Security
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Jane Lute
Term start	January 21, 2009
Predecessor	Michael Chertoff
Office2	21st Governor of Arizona
Term start2	January 6, 2003
Term end2	January 21, 2009
Predecessor2	Jane Dee Hull
Successor2	Jan Brewer
Office3	23rd Attorney General of Arizona
Term start3	January 4, 1999
Term end3	January 6, 2003
Governor3	Jane Dee Hull
Predecessor3	Grant Woods
Successor3	Terry Goddard
Birth date	November 29, 1957
Birth place	New York City, New York, United States
Party	Democratic Party
Alma mater	Santa Clara UniversityUniversity of Virginia
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Methodism

Janet Napolitano (; born November 29, 1957) is the United States Secretary of Homeland Security in the administration of President Barack Obama. She is the fourth person to hold the position, which was created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the 21st Governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009. She was Arizona's third female governor, and the first woman to win re-election. Prior to her election as governor, she served as Attorney General of Arizona from 1999 to 2002. She is the first woman and the 23rd person to serve in that office. Napolitano is the 1977 Truman Scholar from New Mexico. Forbes ranked her as the 51st most powerful woman in 2009.

Early life

Janet Napolitano was born on November 29, 1957 in New York City, the daughter of Jane Marie (née Winer) and Leonard Michael Napolitano, who was the dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. She is of half Italian ancestry and is a Methodist. She was the eldest of three children; she has a younger brother (Leonard Jr.) and a sister (Nancy). She was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she graduated from Sandia High School in Albuquerque in 1975 and was voted Most Likely to Succeed. She graduated from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, where she won a Truman Scholarship, and was valedictorian. In 1978, she studied for a term at the London School of Economics as part of the Santa Clara's exchange programme. She then received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Virginia School of Law. After law school she served as a law clerk for Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then joined Schroeder's former firm, the Phoenix law firm Lewis and Roca.

Political career

In 1991, while a partner with the private Phoenix law firm Lewis and Roca LLP, Napolitano served as an attorney for Anita Hill. Anita Hill testified in the U.S. Senate that then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her ten years earlier when she was his subordinate at the federal EEOC.

In 1993, Napolitano was appointed by President Bill Clinton as United States Attorney for the District of Arizona.

In March 2009, Napolitano received the Council on Litigation Management's Professionalism Award, which recognizes and commemorates an individual who has demonstrated the unique ability to lead others by example in the highest standard of their profession.

Governor

She narrowly won the Arizona gubernatorial election of 2002 with 46 percent of the vote, succeeding Republican Jane Dee Hull and defeating her Republican opponent, former congressman Matt Salmon, who received 45 percent of the vote. She was Arizona's third female governor and the first woman in the United States to be elected governor to succeed another elected female governor. She spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention after some initially considered her to be a possible running mate for presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election but Kerry selected Sen. John Edwards instead. In November 2005, Time magazine named her one of the five best governors in the U.S.

in Denver, Colorado.]] As Governor, Napolitano set records for total number of vetoes issued. In 2005, she set a single session record of 58 vetoes, breaking Jane Dee Hull's 2001 record of 28. By the time she left office, the governor had issued 180 vetoes.

In November 2006, Napolitano won the gubernatorial election of 2006, defeating the Republican challenger, Len Munsil, by a nearly 2–1 ratio and becoming the first woman to be re-elected to that office. Arizona's constitution provides a two-consecutive-term term limit for its governors, meaning Napolitano would have been barred from seeking a third term in office in 2010.

In January 2006, she won the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service. She was a member of the Democratic Governors Association Executive Committee. Furthermore, she has also served previously as Chair of the Western Governors Association, and the National Governors Association. She served as NGA Chair from 2006 to 2007, and was the first female governor and first governor of Arizona ever to serve in that position.

She introduced a new tradition of interfaith breakfasts inviting clergies and community leaders for prayers before start of every session, and was the first ever government official in the world to issue Proclamation for Sri Krishna Janmashtami - the largest Hindu festival celebrating appearance of Lord Krishna.

Secretary of Homeland Security

In February 2006, Napolitano was named by The White House Project as one of "8 in '08", a group of eight female politicians who could possibly run for president in 2008. On January 11, 2008, Napolitano endorsed then Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for president. On November 5, 2008, Napolitano was named to the advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. On December 1, 2008, Barack Obama introduced Napolitano as his nominee for United States Secretary of Homeland Security. On January 20, 2009, Napolitano was confirmed, becoming the first woman appointed Secretary in the relatively new department. Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer became the governor of Arizona, as the state does not have a lieutenant governor.

press conference. The Super Bowl is designated as a National Special Security Event by Homeland Security.]]

In March 2009, Napolitano told the German news site "Spiegel Online" that while she presumes there is always a threat from terrorism: "I referred to 'man-caused' disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur." In April 2009 Napolitano, trying to defend her plans to thicken US-Canadian border security, claimed incorrectly that September 11 attack perpetrators entered the United States from Canada. Her comments provoked an angry response from the Canadian ambassador, media, and public.

In response to criticism, she later said, "Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there". Though there has only been one case, that of Ahmed Ressam an Algerian citizen who was in Canada illegally.

Right-wing extremism memo controversy

Napolitano was the subject of controversy after a Department of Homeland Security threat assessment report initiated during the administration of George W. Bush, entitled "Rightwing [sic] Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," was made public in April 2009. The report suggested several factors, including the election of the first black or mixed race President in the person of Barack Obama, perceived future gun control measures, illegal immigration, the economic downturn beginning in 2008, the abortion controversy, and disgruntled military veterans' possible vulnerability to recruitment efforts by extremist groups as potential risk factors regarding right-wing extremism recruitment.

On April 16, 2009, the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed suit against DHS on behalf of controversial radio talk show host and political commentator Michael Savage, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Gregg Cunningham, and Iraqi War Marine veteran Kevin Murray. Savage stated that the document "encourages law enforcement officers throughout the nation to target and report citizens to federal officials as suspicious right-wing extremists and potential terrorists because of their political beliefs."

Napolitano made multiple apologies for any offense veterans groups had taken at the reference to veterans in the assessment, and promised to meet with those groups to discuss the issue.

While the American Legion reportedly criticized the assessment, Glen M. Gardner Jr., the national commander of the 2.2 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, defended it generally, saying it "should have been worded differently" but served a vital purpose. "A government that does not assess internal and external security threats would be negligent of a critical public responsibility," he said in a statement.

"The system worked" controversy

Sec. Napolitano was criticized for stating in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley that, "the system worked" with regard to an attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 approaching Detroit, Michigan on Christmas Day 2009. She later went on NBC's Today Show with host Matt Lauer and admitted that the security system had indeed failed.

The statement by Napolitano to Crowley that received criticism was as follows:

What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel. And one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight. We instituted new measures on the ground and at screening areas, both here in the United States and in Europe, where this flight originated. So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.

In her interview with Lauer, Napolitano said that her earlier statement was "taken out of context" and maintained "air travel is safe," but admitted, "our system did not work in this instance" and no one "is happy or satisfied with that." In response to the printer bomb attempt and the "underwear" bomb attempt of 2009, Napolitano has instituted "enhanced pat downs". These pat downs may include the touching of sensitive areas such as breasts and genitals.

Walmart - DHS Partnership

On December 6, 2010 it was announced that Napolitano was again expanding her reach by creating a "partnership" with Walmart. This is a video message from Napolitano on TV screens in Wal-Mart stores playing a "public service announcement" to ask customers to report suspicious activity to a Wal-Mart manager. The rationale is that national security begins at home. Napolitano "compares the undertaking to the Cold War fight against communists."

Tucson Memorial

On January 12, 2011, along with President Barack Obama, Napolitano was one of many speakers selected to express sympathies to the community of Tucson, the State of Arizona, and the Nation in a memorial that was televised to remember the victims lost and injured in a inexplicable act of hate, allegedly caused by Jared Lee Loughner. Napolitano confessed that she was at a loss for words during the painful memorial, and elected to read from the Old Testament book of Isaiah.

Personal life

Napolitano is an avid basketball fan and regularly plays tennis. Whitewater rafting and hiking are among Napolitano's hobbies. She has hiked in Arizona's Superstition Mountains and New Mexico's Sandia Mountains and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and the Himalayas. Napolitano survived breast cancer that was discovered in 1998.

Electoral history

See also

AHCCCS: Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (state Medicaid program)

AIMS: Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards (state standardized test for high school students)

Protect Arizona Now: Proposition 200

Arizona-Mexico Commission

References

External links

Biography at the Department of Homeland Security

NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me guest on Not My Job segment

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Category:1957 births Category:American female lawyers Category:American Methodists Category:American politicians of Italian descent Category:American women state governors Category:Arizona Attorneys General Category:Arizona Democrats Category:Breast cancer survivors Category:Governors of Arizona Category:Living people Category:Obama Administration cabinet members Category:People from Albuquerque, New Mexico Category:People from New York City Category:Politicians from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Santa Clara University alumni Category:Truman Scholars Category:United States Attorneys for the District of Arizona Category:United States Secretaries of Homeland Security Category:United States Department of Homeland Security officials Category:University of Virginia School of Law alumni Category:Women in Arizona politics Category:Women members of the Cabinet of the United States

Name	Chris Matthews
Caption	Matthews at the 2010 Time 100 Gala.
Birthname	Christopher John Matthews
Birth date	December 17, 1945
Birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Education	College of the Holy Cross
Occupation	News anchor and political commentator
Religion	Roman Catholic
Spouse	Kathleen Matthews
Relatives	Montgomery County, PA County Commissioner Jim Matthews (brother)
Ethnicity	Irish American
Credits	Hardball with Chris Matthews The Chris Matthews Show
Url	http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/

Christopher John "Chris" Matthews (born December 17, 1945) is an American news anchor and political commentator, known for his nightly hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which is televised on the American cable television channel MSNBC. On weekends he hosts the syndicated NBC News-produced panel discussion program, The Chris Matthews Show. Matthews makes frequent appearances on many NBC and MSNBC programs. On March 22, 2009, Matthews renewed the contract for his show on MSNBC through 2012.

Early life, education, and family

Matthews was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Irish American parents and is a Roman Catholic. He attended La Salle College High School. He is a 1967 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and did graduate work in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Matthews served in the United States Peace Corps in Swaziland from 1968 to 1970 as a trade development advisor.

Matthews is married to Kathleen Matthews, who anchored News 7 on WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C, before accepting a position as an executive vice president with J.W. Marriott. The couple has three children: Michael, Thomas and Caroline. His brother Jim Matthews, a Republican, is a County Commissioner in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

In 2002, Matthews was hospitalized with malaria, which he evidently contracted on one of his visits that year to Africa. He has also had other health problems, including diabetes (which he acknowledged having on the Hardball broadcast of December 7, 2009), and pneumonia.

Political career and views

When Matthews first arrived in Washington, D.C., he worked as a police officer with the United States Capitol Police. Subsequently, he served on the staffs of four Democratic members of Congress, including Senators Frank Moss and Edmund Muskie. In 1974, he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in which he received about 24% of the vote in the primary. Matthews was a presidential speechwriter during the Carter administration, and later worked for six years as a top aide to long-time Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill, playing a direct role in many key political battles with the Reagan administration. Despite having worked for Democrats, Matthews has said, "I'm more conservative than people think I am. ... I voted for George W. in 2000." Matthews has been accused of having panels of guests that skew to the right by liberal media watchdogs and of supporting Republicans in his own questions and comments. Conversely, he is also often criticized by conservatives for his opposition to the Iraq War among other stances he took against the Bush administration. On the April 14, 2008 edition of The Colbert Report, Matthews alluded to a possible run for the United States Senate from Pennsylvania. When directly questioned by Stephen Colbert about his intentions, he stated that there is a difference between celebrities and those who work for the people, and it's a greater thing to work for the people. He also said that his boyhood dream was to be a senator. Four days later, on April 18, 2008, Matthews told Bill Maher that he has "made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987, and [he is] honoring that commitment, not getting involved in it." The seat in question would be the one held by Sen. Arlen Specter, whose current term in the Senate ends in 2010. On November 28, 2008, Fivethirtyeight.com and The Politico reported that Matthews has been in contact with senior staffers of Barack Obama's campaign about a possible run. On January 7, 2009, The New York Times reported that Matthews told his staffers that he would not run for the Senate. On May 25, 2009 Chris Matthews appeared on Charlie Rose where he stated that he was intending to run for Specter's senate seat in 2010, stating "I could see myself winning the Democratic primary and I could see myself going on to face Arlen in the general [election]," but that he felt he had to decide between being a journalist and being a politician once Specter became a national figure by supporting the stimulus.

While discussing proposed healthcare reform on the December 17, 2009 edition of Hardball, Matthews stated: "The Republicans will know they have lost... Let them keep score and it's easy. It's complicated when liberals get to keep score. We're always arguing. Well, I'm a liberal, too."

Author and talk show host

Matthews worked as a print journalist for 15 years, spending 13 years as Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for The San Francisco Examiner (1987–2000), and two years as a nationally syndicated columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Matthews covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first all-races election in South Africa and the Good Friday Peace Talks in Northern Ireland. In 1997 and 1998, his research in the National Archives produced a series of exclusives on the Nixon presidential tapes. Matthews has covered American presidential election campaigns since 1988.

In 1997, Matthews began his own talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which originally aired on CNBC but is currently on MSNBC. Hardball features pundits and elected officials as guests.

In 2002, The Chris Matthews Show began airing in syndication. The show is formatted as a political roundtable consisting of four journalists and Matthews, who serves as the moderator. He is estimated to earn more than $5 million a year. He also wrote a book called Hardball.

Criticisms and controversy

at the 2010 Time 100 Gala.]]Liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald has called Matthews "the most vivid example of all that is wrong with political coverage," saying "[h]e’s endlessly obsessed with personality-based politics and likes to promote the strong, masculine tough guy who you can have a beer with, versus the nerdy loser. And he has a cast of characters who go on his show, like Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, who gush over the maleness of the Republican candidates and warn Democrats about how that has real appeal to American voters. Most political reporters judge candidates on the basis of the likeability factor–Matthews is just more explicit about it." Progressive organization Media Matters for America named Matthews its 2005 Misinformer of the Year, in part for statements he made in support of President George W. Bush.

On January 9, 2008, the morning after Hillary Clinton's surprise victory in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, Matthews appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe program and said of Clinton,

The comments were criticized by such disparate media figures as Bill O'Reilly, Joy Behar and Gloria Steinem. They also resulted in protests outside NBC's Washington, D.C. studios, as well as a joint letter of complaint to NBC from the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, and the National Women's Political Caucus. Matthews apologized for the comments on the January 17, 2008 edition of Hardball. On November 4–5, he teamed with Rachel Maddow, Eugene Robinson, David Gregory, and Keith Olbermann to cover the presidential election.

During MSNBC's coverage of the Potomac primary, Matthews had this to say about then presidential candidate Barack Obama: }} This led many on the right to assert that both he and MSNBC were biased toward Obama.

On November 6, 2008, he was a guest on the MSNBC television program Morning Joe, where he stated, "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new Presidency work." Host Joe Scarborough asked if that was his job as a journalist. "Yeah, that’s my job. My job is to help this country," Matthews said.

On December 1, 2009, preceding Obama's speech announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, Matthews critiqued the president for choosing the United States Military Academy as his venue, referring to it as "the enemy camp." Soon after, Matthews apologized for his remarks saying, "[To] the cadets, their parents, former cadets and everyone who cares about this country and those who defend it: I used the wrong words and worse than that I said something that is just not right and for that I deeply apologize."

In January 2010, in Matthews' comments after President Obama's first State of the Union Address, he says "You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour." The next day, on the Rachel Maddow show, Matthews clarified his remarks, saying "I think he’s taken us beyond black and white in our politics, wonderfully so, in just a year."

Bibliography

References

External links

Hardball with Chris Matthews

The Chris Matthews Show

Category:1945 births Category:American journalists Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American speechwriters Category:American television talk show hosts Category:College of the Holy Cross alumni Category:Commentators Category:American writers of Irish descent Category:American broadcasters of Irish descent Category:Living people Category:MSNBC Category:NBC News Category:Peace Corps volunteers Category:Pennsylvania Democrats Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:People from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Category:Carter administration personnel

Name	Ayn Rand
Alt	Half-length monochrome portrait photo of Ayn Rand, seated, holding a cigarette
Caption	Ayn Rand in 1957
Birthname	Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum
Birthdate	February 02, 1905
Birthplace	Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Deathdate	March 06, 1982
Deathplace	New York City, United States
Occupation	Philosopher, writer
Alma mater	University of Petrograd
Spouse	Frank O'Connor (m. 1929)
Influences	Aristotle, Frédéric Bastiat, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, O. Henry, Victor Hugo, H.L. Mencken, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Nietzsche, Isabel Paterson
Influenced	Martin Anderson, Bob Barr, Glenn Beck, Andrew Bernstein, Harry Binswanger, Barbara Branden, Nathaniel Branden, Steve Ditko, Edith Efron, Terry Goodkind, Allan Gotthelf, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen, Erika Holzer, John Hospers, David Kelley, Anton LaVey, Liu Junning, Edwin A. Locke, Tibor Machan, Stefan Molyneux, Ron Paul, Neil Peart, Leonard Peikoff, George Reisman, Murray Rothbard, John Ridpath, Paul Ryan, Chris Matthew Sciabarra, George H. Smith, Kay Nolte Smith, L. Neil Smith, Tara Smith, Clarence Thomas, Jimmy Wales
Notableworks	The FountainheadAtlas Shrugged
Signature	Sign Ayn Rand.png

Ayn Rand (; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum; – March 6, 1982), was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, Rand migrated to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. She first achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. Over a decade later, she published her magnum opus, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged, in 1957.

Rand's political views, reflected in both her fiction and her theoretical work, emphasize individual rights (including property rights) and laissez-faire capitalism, enforced by a constitutionally limited government. She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism, including fascism, communism, socialism, and the welfare state, and promoted ethical egoism while rejecting the ethic of altruism. She considered reason to be the only means of acquiring knowledge and its advocacy the most important aspect of her philosophy, stating, "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."

Life and work

Early life

Rand was born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum () on February 2, 1905, to a bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of the three daughters (Alisa, Natasha, and Nora) of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna Rosenbaum, largely non-observant Jews. Her father was educated at Warsaw University as a chemist and became a successful pharmacist, eventually owning his own pharmacy and the building in which it was located. His success allowed the family to employ a cook, maid, nurse, and governess. Growing up, she was praised by adults for her intelligence, but her intensity and social awkwardness meant she rarely had friends her own age. On one occasion, when a school assignment called for her to write about the joys of childhood, she instead wrote what she later recalled as "a scathing denunciation" of childhood as inferior to the intellectual condition of adults.

Rand was twelve at the time of the Russian revolution of 1917. Opposed to the Tsar, Rand's sympathies were with Alexander Kerensky. Rand's family life was disrupted by the rise of the Bolshevik party under Vladimir Lenin. Her father's pharmacy was confiscated by the Bolsheviks, and the family fled to the Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. She later recalled that while in high school she determined that she was an atheist and that she valued reason above any other human attribute. After graduating from high school in the Crimea she briefly held a job teaching Red Army soldiers to read. She found she enjoyed that work very much, the illiterate soldiers being eager to learn and respectful of her. At sixteen, Rand returned with her family to Saint Petersburg, where they faced desperate conditions, on occasion, nearly starving.

.]]

Following the Russian Revolution, universities were opened to women, including Jews, allowing Rand to be in the first group of women to enroll at Petrograd State University, where she studied in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. At the university she was introduced to the writings of Aristotle and Plato, who would form two of the greatest influences and counter-influences respectively on her thought. A third figure whose philosophical works she studied heavily was Friedrich Nietzsche. Able to read French, German and Russian, at this time she also discovered the fiction writers Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, Friedrich Schiller, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, who became her perennial favorites. Along with many other "bourgeois" students, Rand was purged from the university shortly before graduating. However, after complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to complete their work and graduate, which Rand did in October 1924.

In the fall of 1925, she was granted a visa to visit American relatives. As her train pulled away she called out to her family, "By the time I return, I'll be famous!" Leaving Russia on January 17, 1926, Rand arrived in the United States on February 19, entering by ship through New York City. She was so impressed with the skyline of Manhattan upon her arrival that she cried what she later called "tears of splendor". Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with relatives in Chicago, one of whom owned a movie theater and allowed her to watch dozens of films for free. She then set out for Hollywood, California.

While still in Russia she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand, possibly as a Cyrillic contraction of her birth surname, and she adopted the first name Ayn, either from a Finnish name, as Rand said, or from the Hebrew word (ayin, meaning "eye"). Initially, she struggled in Hollywood and took odd jobs to pay her basic living expenses. A chance meeting with famed director Cecil B. DeMille led to a job as an extra in his film, The King of Kings, and to subsequent work as a junior screenwriter. While working on The King of Kings, she intentionally bumped into an aspiring young actor, Frank O'Connor, who caught her eye. The two were married on April 15, 1929. Rand became an American citizen in 1931. Taking various jobs during the 1930s to support her writing, Rand worked for a time as the head of the costume department at RKO Studios. She made several attempts to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they were unable to get permission to emigrate.

published in 1925. The hero of The Little Street was described as having "the true, innate psychology of a Superman" and was to be based on an idealized portrait of child killer William Edward Hickman, whom Rand described as a "monster." She described him as the "picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul." Some Rand scholars have interpreted her notes for this book as evidence of her early admiration of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, despite Rand's extremely negative evaluation of Hickman. Rand abandoned the project, and most of these other early projects were never produced or published during Rand's lifetime.

Rand's first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios in 1932. Josef Von Sternberg considered it for Marlene Dietrich, but anti-Communist themes were unpopular at the time, and the project came to nothing. This was followed by the courtroom drama Night of January 16th, first produced in Hollywood in 1934 and then successfully reopened on Broadway in 1935. Each night the "jury" was selected from members of the audience, and one of the two different endings, depending on the jury's "verdict," would then be performed. In 1941, Paramount Pictures produced a movie version of the play. Rand did not participate in the production and was highly critical of the result.

Her first novel, the semi-autobiographical We the Living, was published in 1936 by Macmillan. Set in Soviet Russia, it focused on the struggle between the individual and the state. In the foreword to the novel, Rand stated that We the Living "is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write. It is not an autobiography in the literal, but only in the intellectual sense. The plot is invented, the background is not..." Without Rand's knowledge or permission, We the Living was made into a pair of Italian films, Noi vivi and Addio, Kira, in 1942. The films were soon removed from Italian theatres by the fascist government when it learned of the story's anti-fascist, as well as anti-communist, theme. Rediscovered in the 1960s, these films were re-edited into a new version which was approved by Rand and re-released as We the Living in 1986.

Her novella Anthem was published in England in 1938 and in America seven years later by the Foundation for Economic Education. It presents a vision of a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that even the word "I" has vanished from the language and from humanity's memory.

The Fountainhead and political activism

During the 1940s, Rand became involved in political activism. Both she and her husband worked full time in volunteer positions for the 1940 Presidential campaign of Republican Wendell Willkie. This work led to Rand's first public speaking experiences, including fielding the sometimes hostile questions from New York City audiences who had just viewed pro-Willkie newsreels, an experience she greatly enjoyed. This activity also brought her into contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt and his wife, and Hazlitt introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite her philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men throughout her career, and both of them expressed admiration for her. Once von Mises referred to Rand as "the most courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said 'man' instead of 'woman'. Later, following the publication of Atlas Shrugged, von Mises wrote to her, praising the novel and inviting Rand to attend his seminar as an honored guest, which she did. Rand also developed a friendship with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned the well-informed Paterson about American history and politics long into the night during their numerous meetings and gave Paterson ideas for her only nonfiction book, The God of the Machine.

Rand's first major success as a writer came with The Fountainhead in 1943, a romantic and philosophical novel that she wrote over a period of seven years. She began working on the novel in 1935 right after she finished We the Living. The novel centers on an uncompromising young architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers"—those who attempt to live through others, placing others above self. It was rejected by twelve publishers before finally being accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company on the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it. While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed amphetamine Benzedrine by her physician to fight fatigue. The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the finished novel to Bobbs-Merrill, but when the book was done, she was so exhausted that her doctor ordered two weeks' rest. Some have speculated that her continued use of the prescribed drug for a number of years may have contributed to what some of her later associates alleged to have been her volatile mood swings.

The Fountainhead eventually became a worldwide success, bringing Rand fame and financial security. In 1943, Rand sold the rights for a film version to Warner Brothers, and she returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Finishing her work on that screenplay, she was hired by producer Hal Wallis as a screenwriter and script-doctor. Her work for Wallis included the screenplays for the Oscar-nominated Love Letters and You Came Along, along with research for a screenplay based on the development of the atomic bomb. This role gave Rand time to work on other projects, including the publication of her first work of nonfiction, an essay titled "The Only Path to Tomorrow," in the January 1944 edition of Reader's Digest magazine.

While working in Hollywood, Rand extended her involvement with free-market and anti-Communist activism. She and her husband purchased a house designed by modernist Richard Neutra and an adjoining ranch. There, Rand entertained figures such as Hazlitt, Morrie Ryskind, Barbara Stanwyck, Janet Gaynor, Adrian, Albert Mannheimer and Leonard Read. A visit by Isabel Paterson to meet with Rand's California associates led to a final falling out between the two when Paterson made comments that Rand saw as rude to valued political allies. Despite their break, Rand continued to promote Paterson's The God of the Machine.

Rand became involved with the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Hollywood anti-Communist group, and wrote articles on the group's behalf. She also joined the anti-Communist American Writers Association. In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee. Her testimony described the disparity between her personal experiences in the Soviet Union and the portrayal of it in the 1944 film Song of Russia. Rand argued that the film grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union, portraying life there as being much better and happier than it actually was. When asked about her feelings on the effectiveness of the investigations after the hearings, Rand described the process as "futile".

After several delays, the movie version of The Fountainhead was released in 1949. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end," complaining about its editing, acting and other elements.

Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism

After the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand received numerous letters from readers, some of whom it had profoundly influenced. In 1951 Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers around her. This group (jokingly designated "The Collective") included future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff. At first the group was an informal gathering of friends who met with Rand on weekends at her apartment to discuss philosophy. Later she began allowing them to read the drafts of her new novel, Atlas Shrugged, as the manuscript pages were written. In 1954 Rand's close relationship with the much younger Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair, with the consent of their spouses.

Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, was Rand's magnum opus. Rand described the theme of the novel as "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest." It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists and artists go on strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway where they build an independent free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike, John Galt, describes the strike as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds of the individuals most contributing to the nation's wealth and achievement. With this fictional strike, Rand intended to illustrate that without the efforts of the rational and productive, the economy would collapse and society would fall apart. The novel includes elements of mystery and science fiction, and it contains Rand's most extensive statement of Objectivism in any of her works of fiction, a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt. Atlas Shrugged became an international bestseller, and in an interview with Mike Wallace Rand declared herself "the most creative thinker alive." Rand's last work of fiction, it marked a turning point in her life, ending her career as novelist and beginning her role as a popular philosopher. After completing the novel of more than one thousand pages, however, Rand fell into a severe depression that may have been aggravated by her use of prescription amphetamines.

In 1958 Nathaniel Branden established Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy. Collective members gave lectures for NBI and wrote articles for Objectivist periodicals that she edited. Rand later published some of these articles in book form. Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, have described the culture of NBI as one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand, with some describing NBI or the entire Objectivist movement as a cult or religion. Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, including literature, music, sexuality, even facial hair, and some of her followers mimicked all her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers. Rand was unimpressed with many of the NBI students and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those who disagreed with her. However, some former NBI students believe the extent of these behaviors has been exaggerated, with the problem being concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York.

Later years

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through her nonfiction works and by giving talks, for example at Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Harvard University and MIT. She received an honorary doctorate from Lewis & Clark College in 1963. She also began delivering annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum, responding afterwards in her famously spirited form to questions from the audience. During these speeches and Q&A; sessions, she often took controversial stances on political and social issues of the day. These included supporting abortion rights, opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning draft dodgers as "bums"), supporting Israel in the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 as "civilized men fighting savages", saying European colonists had the right to take land from American Indians, and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", while also advocating the repeal of all laws against homosexuality. She also endorsed several Republican candidates for President of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964, whose candidacy she promoted in several articles for The Objectivist Newsletter. In 1964 Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand. When she learned of it in 1968, though her romantic relationship with Branden had already ended, Rand terminated her relationship with both Brandens, which led to the closure of NBI. Rand published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and other "irrational behavior in his private life." Branden later responded by apologizing in an interview to "every student of Objectivism" for "perpetuating the Ayn Rand mystique" and for "contributing to that dreadful atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist movement."

A heavy smoker, Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974. Several more of her closest associates parted company with her, and during the late 1970s her activities within the Objectivist movement declined, especially after the death of her husband on November 9, 1979. One of her final projects was work on a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. She had also planned to write another novel, but did not get far in her notes. Rand died of heart failure on March 6, 1982 at her home in New York City, and was interred in the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York. Rand's funeral was attended by some of her prominent followers, including Alan Greenspan. A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket. In her will, Rand named Leonard Peikoff the heir to her estate.

Philosophy

Rand developed an integrated philosophical system called "Objectivism." Its essence is "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

As an atheist who rejected faith as antithetical to reason, Rand embraced philosophical realism and opposed all forms of what she regarded as mysticism and supernaturalism, including every organized religion. Rand wrote in her journals that Christianity was "the best kindergarten of communism possible." Rand argued for rational egoism (rational self-interest), as the only proper guiding moral principle. The individual should "exist for his own sake," she wrote in 1962, "neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."

Rand held that laissez-faire, free market capitalism is the only moral social system. Her political views were strongly individualist, anti-statist, anti-fascist and anti-Communist. Rand was strongly opposed to many liberal, conservative and libertarian politicians of her time, including prominent anti-Communists. Rand rejected anarcho-capitalism as "a contradiction in terms", a point on which she has been criticized by self-styled "anarchist Objectivists." Philosopher Chandran Kukathas said her "unremitting hostility towards the state and taxation sits inconsistently with a rejection of anarchism, and her attempts to resolve the difficulty are ill-thought out and unsystematic."

Rand acknowledged Aristotle as her greatest influence and found early inspiration in Friedrich Nietzsche, although she rejected what she considered his anti-reason stance. Ronald E. Merrill and David Ramsay Steele have argued that there exists a difference between her early and later views on the subject of "sacrificing" others. For example, the first edition of We the Living contained language which has been interpreted as advocating ruthless elitism: "What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?"

Rand remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand. Among the philosophers Rand held in particular disdain was Immanuel Kant, whom she referred to as a "monster" and "the most evil man in history". Rand was strongly opposed to the view that reason is unable to know reality "as it is in itself", which she ascribed to Kant, and she considered her philosophy to be the "exact opposite" of Kant's on "every fundamental issue". and Fred Seddon both argue that Rand misinterpreted Kant. In particular, Walsh argues that both philosophers adhere to many of the same basic positions, and that Rand exaggerated her differences with Kant. Walsh says that for many critics, Rand's writing on Kant is "ignorant and unworthy of discussion". Philosopher Jack Wheeler says that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous venting of Randian rage," Rand's ethics is "a most immense achievement, the study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought." In 1976, she said that her most important contributions to philosophy were her "theory of concepts, [her] ethics, and [her] discovery in politics that evil—the violation of rights—consists of the initiation of force."

Reception

During Rand's lifetime, her work evoked extremes of both praise and condemnation. Rand's first novel, We the Living, was admired by the famous literary critic H.L. Mencken, her Broadway play, The Night of January 16, was both a critical and popular success, and The Fountainhead was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as no less than "masterful." According to Mimi Gladstein, however, Rand's novels were derided by some critics when they were first published as long and melodramatic, and they became bestsellers largely due to word of mouth.

The first reviews Rand received were for her Broadway play Night of January 16. Reviews of the production were largely positive, but Rand considered the positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her script by the producer. Rand believed that her first novel, We the Living, as not being widely reviewed, but Michael S. Berliner says "it was the most reviewed of any of her works," with approximately 125 different reviews being published in more than 200 publications. Overall these reviews were more positive than the reviews she received for her later work. Her 1938 novella Anthem received little attention from reviewers, both for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues.

Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were extremely mixed. The New York Times review named Rand "a writer of great power" who writes "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly," and stated that she had "written a hymn in praise of the individual... you will not be able to read this masterful book without thinking through some of the basic concepts of our time." There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them as either not understanding her message or as being from unimportant publications. In the National Review, conservative author Whittaker Chambers called the book "sophomoric" and "remarkably silly". He described the tone of the book as "shrillness without reprieve" and accused Rand of supporting the same godless system as the Soviets, claiming "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go! Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications, including high praise from the noted book reviewer John Chamberlain,

Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels had. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged, with philosopher Sidney Hook likening her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union" and author Gore Vidal calling her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality". Her subsequent books got progressively less attention from reviewers. A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals prior to her death in 1982, many of them in The Personalist. One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by Harvard University professor Robert Nozick, who argued that her meta-ethical argument is unsound and fails to solve the is–ought problem posed by David Hume. Some responses to Nozick by other academic philosophers were also published in The Personalist arguing that Nozick simply misstated Rand's case. Academic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was even more limited. Gladstein was unable to find any scholarly articles about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s.

On the 100th anniversary of Rand's birth in 2005, Edward Rothstein, writing for The New York Times, referred to her fictional writing as quaint Utopian "retro fantasy" and programmatic neo-Romanticism of the misunderstood artist, while criticizing her characters' "isolated rejection of democratic society." In 2007, book critic Leslie Clark described her fiction as "romance novels with a patina of pseudo-philosophy." In 2009, GQ magazine's critic columnist Tom Carson described her books as "capitalism's version of middlebrow religious novels" such as and the Left Behind series.

Serious attention to both the literary and philosophical aspects of Rand's novels is given by numerous academics and scholars in such recent volumes as Professor Robert Mayhew's collections, Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Legacy

rotunda at Walt Disney World's Epcot]] Rand's books continue to be widely sold and read, with 25 million copies sold as of 2007, and 800,000 more being sold each year according to the Ayn Rand Institute. In addition, the Ayn Rand Institute provides 400,000 copies of Rand’s novels every year for free to high schools throughout the United States. Although Atlas Shrugged was not listed on the 1998 Modern Library "100 Best Novels" list, the Internet-generated readers poll placed four of her books on the top 100 Novels list, with it taking the top position, while another, The Virtue of Selfishness, topped the Readers list for 100 Best Nonfiction. Books by other authors about Rand and her philosophy also appeared on the nonfiction list. The validity of such lists has been disputed. Freestar Media/Zogby polls conducted in 2007 found that around eight percent of American adults had read Atlas Shrugged, while a 2010 Zogby online survey showed that 29 percent of the adult respondents said that they had read the novel, and of those polled, 49 percent agreed that the novel had "changed the way they think about political or ethical issues," versus 45 percent who disagreed. Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been international interest in her work.

Among novelists, Ira Levin was an admirer of Rand's fiction, Robert Heinlein praised Rand in the text of his novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and James Clavell called Rand "one of the real, true talents on this earth." Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry has described the influence of Rand's theory of art on his own work, and novelist Erika Holzer has credited Rand, whom she knew personally, as the leading influence on her fiction writing. Other writers and artists who have cited Rand as an important influence on their lives and thought include Marvel Comics artist Steve Ditko, novelist Terry Goodkind, and Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist for the musical group Rush.

The Fountainhead has been cited by a number of architects as an important inspiration for their work. Architect Fred Stitt, founder of the San Francisco Institute of Architecture, has referred to Howard Roark as his “first architectural mentor,” and noted architect Frederick Clifford Gibson has named the novel as his major inspiration. Nader Vossoughian has written that "The Fountainhead... has shaped the public’s perception of the architectural profession more than perhaps any other text over this last half-century.” According to renowned architectural photographer Julius Shulman, it was Rand's work that "brought architecture into the public's focus for the first time," and he believes that The Fountainhead was not only influential among 20th century architects, it "was one, first, front and center in the life of every architect who was a modern architect."

In Hollywood, actors Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Christina Ricci, Rob Lowe and Eva Mendes have all spoken positively about her work. Actress Raquel Welch, who met Rand, has referred to her as one of the "all-time great human being[s]... certainly one of the extraordinary people of the century," and Farrah Fawcett, another actress whom Rand hoped would play Dagny Taggart in a 1978 TV version of Atlas Shrugged, declared the author a "literary genius."

In the business world, John Allison of BB&T; has actively promoted Rand's work through the "Moral Foundations of Capitalism" program, while Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and John P. Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, among others, have said they consider Rand crucial to their success. Ed Snider, the CEO of Comcast Spectacor helps to fund the advocacy of Rand's ideas, and Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe Systems, reports that Atlas Shrugged is the "one" book which has "stayed with me over the years... It's a powerful story about the importance of individuality, originality and the social value of intellectual freedom." Other "avowed Rand fans" include Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. Baseball legend Cal Ripken and women's sports pioneer Billie Jean King have both said that they found Rand's novels an inspiration. Magician and social commentator, Penn Jillette has repeatedly expressed his agreement with and admiration for Rand and Atlas Shrugged.

Rand and her works have been referred to in a variety of media. References to her have appeared on television shows including animated sitcoms, live-action comedies, dramas, and game shows. Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film, , was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The Passion of Ayn Rand, an independent film based on her life, was made in 1999, starring Helen Mirren as Rand and Peter Fonda as her husband. The film was based on the book of the same name by Barbara Branden, and won several awards. Rand's image also appears on a U.S. postage stamp designed by artist Nick Gaetano.

Rand or her works have been referenced on such television shows as Mad Men and Frasier, animated series such as Futurama, South Park and The Simpsons, Rand herself, or characters based on her, figure prominently in novels by such authors as William F. Buckley, Mary Gaitskill, Matt Ruff, J. Neil Schulman and Kay Nolte Smith. The references to Rand in these works are not always positive. Nick Gillespie, editor in chief of Reason, has remarked that "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist..." with "jibes at Rand as cold and inhuman, run[ning] through the popular culture."

Political influence

carries a sign referring to John Galt, the hero of Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged|alt=In a large outdoor crowd, a man holds up a poster with the words "I am John Galt" in all capital letters]]

Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian," Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, considers Rand one of the three most important women (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) of modern American libertarianism, and David Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party, stated that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist." Conversations with Rand in the early 1960s, for example, moved John Hospers, the first presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, to his libertarian views.

Rand has had continuing influence on right-wing politics, especially libertarianism. In his history of the libertarian movement, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large," and biographer Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right." Burns describes differences between Rand and conservatives, alleging that "whereas traditional conservatism emphasized duties, responsibilities, and social interconnectedness, at the core of the right-wing ideology that Rand spearheaded was a rejection of moral obligation to others." Burns also notes that libertarian Murray Rothbard was introduced to the "whole field" of natural rights through his discussions with Rand.

Chinese dissident Liu Junning has stated that he is among Rand's admirers.

Despite Rand's untraditionally Republican stance as a pro-choice atheist, Martin Anderson, chief domestic policy adviser for President Ronald Reagan, identifies himself as a disciple of Rand, and Reagan described himself as an "admirer" of Rand in private correspondence in the 1960s. "In 1987, The New York Times called Rand the 'novelist laureate' of the Reagan administration. Reagan's nominee for commerce secretary, C. William Verity Jr., kept a passage from Atlas Shrugged on his desk, including the line "How well you do your work . . . [is] the only measure of human value."

Conservative and libertarian talk show hosts such as Glenn Beck, John Stossel, Neal Boortz and Rush Limbaugh have recommended Atlas Shrugged to their audiences. U.S. Congressmen Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and Paul Ryan have acknowledged her influence on their lives, as has Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Clarence Thomas.

The financial crisis of 2007–2010 spurred renewed interest in her works, especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis, and opinion articles compared real-world events with the plot of the novel. Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford wrote a 2009 review for Newsweek where he spoke of how he was "blown away" after first reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, while tying her significance to understanding the 2008 financial crisis. Signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests, while the Cato Institute's Will Wilkinson quipped that "going Galt" had become the "libertarian-conservative's version of progressives threatening to move to Canada."

During this period there was also increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left, with critics blaming the economic crisis on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan. For example, the left-leaning Mother Jones remarked that "Rand's particular genius has always been her ability to turn upside down traditional hierarchies and recast the wealthy, the talented, and the powerful as the oppressed", Historian Jennifer Burns has identified "three overlapping waves" of scholarly interest in Rand, the most recent of which is "an explosion of scholarship" in the 2000s. However, few universities currently include Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area, with many literature and philosophy departments dismissing her as a pop culture phenomenon rather than a subject for serious study.

Some academic philosophers have criticized Rand for what they consider her lack of rigor and limited understanding of philosophical subject matter. Chris Matthew Sciabarra has called into question the motives of some of Rand's critics because of what he calls the unusual hostility of their criticisms. Sciabarra writes, "The left was infuriated by her anti-communist, pro-capitalist politics, whereas the right was disgusted with her atheism and civil libertarianism."

Academics with an interest in Rand, such as Gladstein, Sciabarra, Allan Gotthelf, Edwin A. Locke and Tara Smith, have taught her work in academic institutions. Sciabarra co-edits the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a nonpartisan peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of Rand's philosophical and literary work. In 1987 Gotthelf helped found the Ayn Rand Society, and has been active in sponsoring seminars about Rand and her ideas. Smith has written several academic books and papers on Rand's ideas, including Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, a volume on Rand's ethical theory published by Cambridge University Press. Rand's ideas have also been made subjects of study at Clemson and Duke universities. Scholars of English and American literature have largely ignored her work, although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s. In the Literary Encyclopedia entry for Rand written in 2001, John Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation". In a 1999 interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra commented, "I know they laugh at Rand," while forecasting a growth of interest in her work in the academic community.

Institutes

In 1985, Leonard Peikoff established the Ayn Rand Institute, which "works to introduce young people to Ayn Rand's novels, to support scholarship and research based on her ideas, and to promote the principles of reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism to the widest possible audience." In 1990, David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society. In 2001 historian John McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in academia. The foundation has supported research at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pittsburgh, Duke University and other schools.

Selected bibliography

;Novels

We the Living (1936)

The Fountainhead (1943)

Atlas Shrugged (1957)

;Other fiction

Night of January 16th (1934)

Anthem (1938)

;Non-fiction

For the New Intellectual (1961)

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

(1966)

The Romantic Manifesto (1969)

(1971)

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1979)

(1982)

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

Ayn Rand Biographical FAQ from the Objectivism Reference Center

Frequently Asked Questions About Ayn Rand from the Ayn Rand Institute

What's Living and Dead in Ayn Rand's Moral and Political Thought by the Cato Institute

Rand's papers at The Library of Congress

Ayn Rand Lexicon – searchable database

Ayn Rand entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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