Golden Gate Objectivists

Should Corporations Be Able to Speak Freely? Corporate Speech in the Wake of Citizens United

2010-05-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

Golden Gate Objectivists are invited to the following Campus Club event in Stanford, courtesy of the Ayn Rand Institute and the Campus Club:

Should Corporations Be Able to Speak Freely? Corporate Speech in the Wake of Citizens United

A debate at Stanford University

Who: Dr. Eric Daniels, research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism, and David Yosifon, law professor at Santa Clara University

What: A debate that focuses on the issue of whether corporations should have a limit on their right to free speech

Where: Building 420, Room 041, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305

When: Tuesday, May 11, 2010, at 7:30 p.m.

Admission: FREE. Open to students and the public. No RSVP required.

Bio: Dr. Eric Daniels is a research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has lectured internationally on American history, particularly on American intellectual history, business history and political history. He taught for five years in Duke University’s Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, where he was nominated for a university-wide teaching award. Dr. Daniels was a contributor to the recently published Oxford Companion to United States History, and wrote a chapter in The Abolition of Antitrust. He has appeared on C-SPAN and Voice of America Radio.

David Yosifon teaches courses in the areas of business law, legal ethics and legal theory at Santa Clara University. His scholarship is focused on the application of social psychology, and allied social sciences, to law and legal theory. His recent work advances this approach to legal theory through a critique of the role that conventional conceptions of human agency play in contemporary corporate governance law.

Professor Yosifon was born and raised in New Jersey. He received his undergraduate degree in history and philosophy from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in 1995 (summa cum laude). After Rutgers he attended graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where in 1997 he received a master’s degree in American Social History. He received his J.D. from Harvard University in 2002 (magna cum laude). Before joining the faculty at Santa Clara University, Yosifon served as a visiting assistant professor at Rutgers Law School-Camden, and as a visiting associate professor at New York Law School. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Patti B. Saris of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and as a litigation associate at the Boston firm of Ropes & Gray, LLP.

More information: Please e-mail the host, the Objectivists of Stanford, atdakinsloss@gmail.com

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.

GGO at San Francisco Tea Party - Join Us!

2010-04-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

Golden Gate Objectivists will participate at the Bay Area Patriot Tea Party on Thursday, April 15th, in San Francisco.

Here are the key details - we hope you will join us!

Where & when:
San Francisco, Union Square, 4 pm - 7 pm
GGO will meet near the KSFO tent, between 3:45 pm - 4:15 pm. If you are planning to come, but will be late, look for our posters - or you can e-mail us ahead of time at goldengateobjectivists[at]gmail[dot]com, and I can give you more detail on how to find us at the event.

What:
Bay Area Patriots are organizing the event, and have several speakers and some musical entertainment scheduled. GGO will participate with posters focused on Individual Rights and their application to current issues, esp. health care. We will also have some copies of Ayn Rand Samplers, and some other hand-outs for those who are interested in learning more about our group, and about Objectivism.
We will bring a half-dozen posters - if you are coming, and want to carry one, but haven't RSVP'ed, you may need to bring your own.

You can find more event info here: www.bayareapatriots.com

Invitation to the Ayn Rand Society meeting in San Francisco, April 3

2010-03-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

On April 3rd the Ayn Rand Society will be hosting an event open to the public at the Westin-St Francis in San Francisco. Here is the information forwarded by ARI.

The Ayn Rand Society will meet once again with the American Philosophical Association (APA) Pacific Division, this year in San Francisco, at the Westin-St. Francis Hotel, Saturday evening, April 3rd. The meeting will be open to individuals who are neither members of the APA nor members of ARS. (The registration fee for individual events, payable at the APA Registration Desk, is $10. There is no other cost.)

The format of this ARS meeting is "Author-meet-Critics". This is a rubric used by the APA programmers for events at which a number of philosophers comment on a recent book and the author responds. ("Critic" is used in the way that it is in "movie critic": a critic’s review can certainly be favorable.)

Our meeting, however, will be Authors-meet-Critics, since the book in question is Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (ed. R. Mayhew), and several of its essays will be discussed. In particular, three philosophers will comment on five of the philosophical essays in the volume by three authors, and the three authors will give responses, followed by Q & A.

The five papers under discussion, and their three authors, are:
1. Gregory Salmieri, "Atlas Shrugged on the Role of the Mind in Man's Existence"
2. Onkar Ghate, "The Role of Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged"
3. Allan Gotthelf, "Galt's Speech in Five Sentences (and Forty Questions)"
4. Allan Gotthelf, "A Note on Dagny's 'Final Choice'"
5. Gregory Salmieri, "Discovering Atlantis: Atlas Shrugged's Demonstration of a New Moral Philosophy”
The "critics" (or commentators) are:
Prof. Christine Swanton (University of Auckland, NZ), discussing paper #1.
Dr. William Glod (Institute for Humane Studies), discussing papers #2 and #3.
Prof. Lester Hunt (University of Wisconsin–Madison), discussing paper #4 and the portion of paper #5 devoted to Dagny.
The program will be chaired by Prof. Fred Miller, Bowling Green State University, and the book will be introduced by its editor, Robert Mayhew.

Further information is available on the Society's website, www.aynrandsociety.org (which is well worth consulting on its own). ARS members and contributors receive advance copies of the three papers, and will be sent copies of the responses (and Prof. Mayhew’s introduction) after to the meeting. If you would like to become a contributor to the Society, go to the “Membership (and other Affiliation)" page its website. But, as I say, individuals not affiliated with the Society are welcome at the San Francisco meeting.

Report from BAP Event March 7

2010-03-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

The Golden Gate Objectivists had a good showing at the Bay Area Patriot event in Marin on March 7th. About 30 groups had tables - we were featured right next to the speaker podium, where we were very visible to the about 500 people who attended the event. We handed out over 150 Ayn Rand Samplers, all 100 of our 'Man's Right' and 'America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business' pamphlets, as well as a big stack of essays advocating free-market health care reform. We also had over 20 people sign up to join our GGO mailing list: welcome to all of you, and we hope to see you again at one of our next events.

While most of the candidate speakers at the event were mixed or rather bad, we did connect with at least one potentially interesting candidate: John Dennis, who is running in the Republican Primary as a potential challenger for Nancy Pelosi, spoke quite emphatically on the importance of defending individual rights. In conversations after his talk, a few Golden Gate Objectivists found him to be surprisingly principled: he advocates phasing out entitlements, a free-market direction for health care reform, and an ultimate abolishment of the Fed. He also is well-read in Ayn Rand - admiring her not just for her politics of capitalism, but stating that he found her impressive for 'her fundamental identification that in the end, politics comes down to a person's views in epistemology and metaphysics.' Definitely a politician worth investigating: if someone with these views can have a good run against Nancy Pelosi, maybe we can have some real change soon!

Thank you also to Sally Zelikovski, who put this very professionally organized event together!

GGO at Tea Party/Conservative Group get-together March 7

2010-02-28T20:14:00.001-08:00

GGO will have a table at the upcoming get-together organized by the Bay Area Patriots organization. The event will take place March 7th from 1 pm - 5 pm at the Mill Valley Community Center. We will have a table advertising our group as well as Ayn Rand, and will distribute free Ayn Rand Samplers and other pamphlets to event participants.

If you are interested in staffing the table, and haven't let us know yet, please send us an e-mail at goldengateobjectivists(at)gmail(dot)com.

Yaron Brook at Stanford - February 2nd, 7:30 pm

2010-01-20T17:03:00.000-08:00

Below is an invitation from the Ayn Rand Institute to a debate including Yaron Brook at Stanford University. This debate is organized by the Objectivists at Stanford. Should be a great event to attend - we hope many of the Golden Gate Objectivists can make it. You don't have to RSVP - but if you are interested in car pooling or having an early dinner together prior to the event, please e-mail us at goldengateobjectivistsgmailcom.

[For car pooling, please let us know from where, and whether you want a ride or are offering (how many?)We will forward your e-mail to others in your area who have expressed an interest in car pooling, so you can coordinate with each other directly.]
__________________________________________________________________

Dear ARI Contributor:

We wanted to alert you to the following live debate in your area.

Is Christianity Compatible with Capitalism?

A debate at Stanford University

Who: Dr. Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Dr. Jennifer Morse, senior fellow in economics at the Acton Institute

What: A debate that will focus around the issue of whether Christianity is compatible with capitalism. It will consist of opening remarks, a rebuttal, and a Q&A with the audience.

Where: Building 320, Room 105, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305

When: Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 7:30 p.m.

Admission: FREE. Open to students and the public. No RSVP required. Go here for maps: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/visitorinfo/plan/maps.html

Bios:

Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. A former finance professor, he has published in academic as well as popular publications and is frequently interviewed in the media. He has appeared on CNN, Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel, CNBC and PBS, among others. He lectures on Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy at college campuses and for corporations across America and throughout the world.

Jennifer Roback Morse, senior fellow in economics at the Acton Institute and regular contributor to National Review Online and The National Catholic Register, received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rochester. Until recently, she was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She has been on the faculty of Yale University and George Mason University, and is the author of Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn’t Work.

More information: Please e-mail the host, the Objectivists of Stanford, at dakinsloss@gmail.com.

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI.

We hope you will be able to attend.

Social event - February 7: Hanna House in Palo Alto

2010-01-20T16:58:00.000-08:00

For our next bi-monthly social activity we will be touring Frank Lloyd Wright's Hanna House in Palo Alto on Sunday February 7th at 11.30am. The cost is $10 per person plus $5 per car to park. There are limited spaces available according to the web site for the 11:30 am and 11:15 am tours, so be sure to buy your ticket soon if you are interested in coming. Tours last for one hour and we will get lunch in Palo Alto afterwards. Note that this is on a Sunday rather than our usual Saturday because of when the tours occur.

tickets can be purchased at:
http://hannahousetours.stanford.edu/index.php?p=tinfo

Hope you can make it. Please RSVP to goldengateobjectivistsgmailcom if you can make it so that we can look out for you and so we have the right numbers for lunch. Also, if you wish to car pool and save money on parking, let us know and we will try to coordinate.

Tea Party / Health Care Protest in San Francisco

2009-11-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

I had the opportunity to speak at the health care protest in San Francisco on November 15. Here is a video of my speech.

Nov 10 Berkeley talk canceled

2009-11-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

Please note that due to lack of available space at Berkeley, the November 10 talk by Dr. Brook has been canceled. We will attempt to reschedule for next semester. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Upcoming meeting - Saturday, Nov 7

2009-11-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

We will have our bi-monthly meeting at Doyle Street Cafe in Emeryville this Saturday. Discussion topics will include:

Health Care activism
Cap and Trade - activism on the likely next hot topic
ARI talk in February - speaker, topic, location, promoting the event
Atlas Shrugged Study Group update
GGO X-Mas Party planning.

We hope to see many of you there.

Note: The Yaron Brook talk originally scheduled for November 10 had to be cancelled, as we were unable to obtain a room at UC Berkeley (despite OCB's valiant efforts.) We will reschedule for early next year - likely with a different, current topic.

Dr. Yaron Brook in Berkeley Nov 10!!!

2009-10-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hello Golden Gate Objectivists,

We are pleased to announce that GGO and OCB (the Objectivist Club of Berkeley) will be co-hosting Dr. Yaron Brook on November 10th. The event will be at UC Berkeley in the evening (likely around 7 pm); specific location and topic to be announced soon.

Please mark your calendars!

Looking forward to seeing many of you there,

Heike

Atlas Shrugged Study Group - Starts 10/14

2009-10-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

If you want to join up for our Atlas Shrugged study group, let me know. Our first meeting will be on Wednesday, October 14, at 7pm. If you wish to join us that day, please e-mail me so I can give you the location. Starting in November, our meetings will be every 2 weeks on Thursdays at 7pm. Please note that only the first meeting is on a Wednesday. I have a sites page up now if you want to join at a later date or just see what we're up to:

http://sites.google.com/site/ggostudygroup/home

My intention is to keep a record of the discussions we have. You can also see our calendar and when we're meeting.

Best,
Faye

If you do not have Faye's e-mail, you can e-mail GGO at goldengateobjectivists[at]gmail[dot]com, and we will forward your interest to Faye, who will e-mail you back.

(Posted for Faye by Heike)

Atlas Shrugged Study Group in San Francisco

2009-09-22T14:33:00.001-07:00

Hello Golden Gate Objectivists,

We are happy to announce that we have found a leader for a regular GGO study group. Faye Cheadle will be starting up a study group in San Francisco, and is inviting all GGO members to attend. The first book to discuss will be Atlas Shrugged, and the study group will take place on a weeknight (7 pm) in San Francisco. Faye will collect interest via e-mail (e-mail to goldengateobjectivists[at]gmail[dot]com, and we will forward to Faye) and will then coordinate the best location and schedule for those interested.

If you are interested in participating, please e-mail Faye by October 4th, so she can collect the interest and get things going soon.

Thanks, Faye, for heading up this effort!

GGO Napa Trip - RSVP requested

2009-09-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,
on October the 3rd we will be hosting a GGO social trip to Napa. Please RSVP (to Caroline directly, if you got her e-mail; otherwise, to sign up for e-mails and to RSVP, you can e-mail GGO at goldengateobjectivists[at]gmail[dot]com) and tell us if you are either definitely attending or maybe attending as rough numbers will help us with the planning. Also, please note if you are interested in car pooling (as a driver or passenger) and I will help put you in touch with others that also wish to car pool.

The agenda will most likely start with driving up the valley and doing some sight seeing. For example, we will probably visit the culinary institute set in an old monastery. Then we will drive down the Silverado Trail, stopping for lunch along the way. We will drive back to downtown Napa for a walking wine tasting tour so that people who are driving can do some tasting too. Then we will visit the Cordair Gallery and perhaps stop for dinner somewhere if there interest.

We hope you can make it.

Caroline and Heike

PS: reminder that our next GGO meeting is on 9/19 in Emeryville.

Calendar of Events:
Saturday September 19th 10am: Meet at the Doyle St Cafe, Emeryville
Saturday October 3rd: Social trip to Napa. The plan (subject to change) is to meet at the Cordair Gallery at 11am, followed by lunch at 12pm then a visit to two wineries in the afternoon, possibly followed by dinner.
Saturday November 7th 10am: Meet at the Doyle St Cafe, Emeryville
Saturday December 5th evening: GGO holiday party in San Francisco (possibly Tres Agaves restaurant).
Saturday Januray 9th 10am: Meet at the Doyle St Cafe, Emeryville
Saturday February 6th: Social Event in San Francisco, tbd.

Bay Area Book Program

2009-08-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

Since 2006, GGO and Quent Cordair Fine Art have sponsored the Ayn Rand Institute's "Free Books to Teachers" program in several Bay Area counties. This list of counties includes San Francisco, San Mateo, Contra Costa, Solano, Sonoma, and Monterey. This school year we are expanding the program to also include Napa and Santa Cruz counties, and we are soliciting donations to achieve this goal.

The ARI book program is an excellent way to spread Ayn Rand's ideas to individuals at a time when they are deciding their core beliefs.

If you are interested in contributing to this project, please email 'goldengateobjectivists[at]gmail[dot]com'.

Health Care Activism - Contact your Representatives

2009-08-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

As announced in a prior e-mail to the group and prior post, health care is our very timely current topic for intellectual activism. I will be sending out e-mails with opportunities for us to spread the Objectivist perspective, and hope many of you can participate with whatever time you have available.

Our first opportunity is to bring rational ideas to the attention of our elected representatives – and to show them, compellingly, that a smart, informed opposition to the ObamaCare debacle does exist.

To make it easier for you to contact your representatives, we have pulled some resources together:

List of representatives, with addresses, e-mail forms and town hall meetings. (Thanks, Kirk, for pulling this together!) If you are not on our e-mail list yet, and would like to obtain this list, please e-mail us at goldengateobjectivists[at]gmail[dot]com, and we will send you the list and add you to our mailing list.

Helpful links to articles you can read up for your own arguments, or share as links with the representatives (or print & mail to their physical office addresses.)

“Health Care is Not A Right” by Dr. Peikoff

Dr. Lewis’ analysis of the house bill

The Objective Standard has many great articles on healthcare. Craig Biddle, the publisher, is giving people the permission to buy a pdf of an article, and then distribute it free of charge as intellectual activism. You can find one great article, “Moral Health Care vs Universal Health Care”, here. If you want to forward the article to your representatives or others, please go to TOS and pay the $4.95 to buy your own pdf copy to support the magazine.

Let’s get a lot of e-mails and letters out to the representatives. They will likely not share our ideas – but it’s much harder to honestly claim the opposition is an ‘angry mob’ when we can show the intellectual quality of the argument for free market health care.

P.S. It is also a good idea to use these same links and materials with your own personal networks – distribute the TOS article to friends & family who may be sympathetic, or post the links to the articles to your Facebook/MySpace pages etc.

Group agenda and new monthly meeting schedule

2009-08-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

At Saturday’s meeting, we reviewed the survey input we received from many of you (thank you!) and set out the agenda for the Golden Gate Objectivist club as follows:

The club will have monthly meetings, with an alternating schedule between political activism and social events. Every second month we will meet in Emeryville at 10am on Saturday where we will focus on intellectual activism. Heike will lead this effort. The first topic of focus for the club will be healthcare.

Every alternating month we will meet for a social event on Saturdays, usually in the afternoon or evening in San Francisco. Caroline will be responsible for the social agenda.

There was quite a bit of interest in a study group, but we need a volunteer to be responsible for the organization of it. If anyone would like to volunteer to head up the study group, please let us know.

Please mark your calendar with the following dates:
Saturday September 19th 10am: Meet at the Doyle St Cafe, Emeryville
Saturday October 3rd: Social trip to Napa. The plan (subject to change) is to meet at the Cordair Gallery at 11am, followed by lunch at 12pm then a visit to two wineries in the afternoon, possibly followed by dinner.
Saturday November 7th 10am: Meet at the Doyle St Cafe, Emeryville
Saturday December 5th evening: GGO holiday party in San Francisco (possibly Tres Agaves restaurant).
Saturday January 9th 10am: Meet at the Doyle St Cafe, Emeryville
Saturday February 6th: Social Event in San Francisco, tbd.

We will send out follow-up information to our e-mail list (e.g., a list of contacts for local congressmen/senators to make our voices heard on the health care debate.) If you are not on our mailing list, and want to make sure to receive all this information, please e-mail us at goldengateobjectivists[at]gmail[dot]com

We look forward to this more regular schedule, to meeting many more of you, and to contributing to the voice for Objectivist ideas in the important debates in our country.

Protesting Socialized Health Care

2009-08-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much again to everyone for the great turnout and participation at yesterday's protest in San Francisco against socialized health care. We can be proud of what we accomplished. We distributed approximately 440 of our essay-packets, focusing on the moral aspects of the issue, directing people to read Ayn Rand and to visit ARI's website to learn more about the philosophical issues at stake.

Thanks to Sally Zelikovsky with the Bay Are a Patriots for organizing the event. Thanks to Dr. John Lewis for giving us permission to reprint and distribute his article, "There is No Moral Right to Health Care," and his excellent analysis of HR3200. Thanks to Roxanne for letting us include her essay, "Immorality of Socialized Medicine," and thanks to AFCM for permission to reprint Dr. Peikoff's speech, "Health Care is No t a Right."

NOTE TO MEMBERS -- Please consider posting the above links to these excellent and important essays to your social lists and to your Facebook, etc.!

The first coverage I found on-line of the event was on Instapundit, one of the most widely read blogs on the internet. Glenn had linked to a video of the protest, and he posted a note I sent to him in response, which includes a mention of our group. There is additional video of the event posted here.

There were 13 of us present throughout the day, about half of whom enjoyed socializing for a couple of hours afterwards, across the street at Taylor’s. Great job everyone!

Health Care "Reform" Protest, Friday Aug 14th, 1-5pm

2009-08-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

GGO members are invited and urged to participate in the protest, this coming Friday afternoon, August 14, 1-5 p.m. The protest has been relocated to the Justin Herman Plaza (across from the Ferry Building). For additional details, please visit the protest organizer's website. If you can attend for all or even part of the time, please email me at qcordair (-at-) comcast.net so that we can coordinate our efforts, signage, informational flyers, etc. By participating in the event, we won't likely affect Speaker Pelosi's vote, but many attendees need and want information that will help them identify the underlying moral, philosophical issues. We can help with that. :)

Group interest survey

2009-06-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

We had a productive meeting on Saturday, June 13: we identified quite a few activities we would like to pursue with GGO. Since many of you were not at the event, we would like to get your input via a web-based survey.

Please go to the below link now and let us know what you would like to do with the Golden Gate Objectivists. This will help us get the group more interesting and relevant to your needs.

Click Here to take survey

Please respond by July 3 so we can plan our activities.

Please also mark your calendar: September 5 will be a Bay-Area wide Tea Party – and given the success of the April 15 event for GGO, we want to make a big impact with lots of people, posters, and handouts. More information about this event and the Tea Party Movement in the Bay Area to follow separately.

Also, if you are interested in doing something related to the Tea Parties on July 4th/July 5th (not a big GGO effort), there will be a few events in the near future. They are organized or coordinated by the people who brought you the April 15 Tea Party. You can learn more on their web group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BayAreaPatriots/

This is also a good forum to peruse for opportunities to bring Objectivist principles into the Tea Party discussions. You'll see that some GGO members posted, and were well received.

Tea Party Follow-Up - Notes from organizers

2009-06-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

The Tea Party organizers are planning a number of upcoming events. Since we had a good showing on April 15th, and people had fun (and impact, I think!) I hope we can participate in some of the upcoming events as well.

Please let us know your interest level - or contact the organizer directly (esp. for the July 4th event - I don't think we'll do a big GGO effort for that one.)

The organizer is Sally Zelikovsky, her e-mail is sallyzelcomcastnet.

Post from Sally follows below:
__________________________________________________________________________

July 4th:

I want to invite as many of you as possible to participate, if you have time, to march as a group (bay area patriots)in the Novato Parade from 10-noon on the 4th.

The parade has about 15,000 to 20,000 attendants so it is great exposure for us. This is not so much a protest as it is a chance for us to get exposure and Novato tends to be more conservative than the rest of Marin, so folks shouldn't be worried about being in "liberal" Marin.

It's a short amount of time. You can always make a day of it and go to the Marin County Fair afterwards and watch the fireworks that evening...or just continue on your merry ways w/ your personal plans.

I know it is a long distance for many of you, but for those who can make it, shoot me an email and let me know: sallyzel@comcast.net. Please put July 4th in the subject heading.

We will not be having a booth at the Fair. We are only doing the parade.

We have a lot of fun things planned for the "march" as it is a light, fun parade.

Thanks to some very generous donations, we will also be giving away those fun silicon wrist bands that will say "Join the Tea Party" and list our website...which I'm working on.

Beyond:

Sept 5th and Oct. 10-11th (tentative):

Please mark your calendars for Sept 5th when we are hoping to have a huge Bay Area Wide Tea Party style event and Oct. 10-11 when the Blue Angels are in town--we hope to do something that shows support for the Blue Angels/military and gives us exposure but isn't a protest. I'd like us all to wear the same T-shirts for that event--how cool if a thousand of us show up all in bright red shirts that advertise Bay Area Patriots? These dates are tentative...but I really hope the majority of you can make them happen. I'll do the planning...w/ some help...you just show up.

Meeting this Saturday, June 13 - 10 am, Doylestreet Cafe Emeryville

2009-06-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

As planned, we will have our next bi-monthly casual brunch get-together coming up this Saturday. Here are the details:

Bi-monthly brunch meeting - every 2nd Saturday, even months, 10 am. Location: Doyle Street Cafe, Emeryville - www.doylestreetcafe.com

Do let me know by tomorrow afternoon if you plan to come, so I can ask them for a table to seat all that may appear.

Our agenda – beyond socializing: I would love to understand better what people would like to do with GGO. I am also looking for volunteers to help with organizing any new things we may do. Our mailing list now has over 60 people on it, so we have a nice critical mass – provided we can find enough people to chip in with organizing efforts and activities that people are excited about.

See those of you who can make it on Saturday!

Tea Party - Successful Event

2009-04-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

Today, about a dozen Golden Gate Objectivists participated in the Tax Day Tea Party in San Francisco. We showed up with flags, and a half dozen coordinated posters. I would guess about 600-800 people were at the event, which was very peaceful and outright beautiful, on a nice sunny day in a wonderful setting.

We all felt it was great to be out there, speaking our minds - and most of all, getting the message about Ayn Rand and the Ayn Rand Center out to a receptive audience. All of us had numerous people come up to us throughout the event, talking about how Ayn Rand should be read by everybody. I had a chance to make a few brief comments - and received loud cheers at the mention of Ayn Rand, and her quote about taking up the moral fight for capitalism. We also passed out about 200 flyers, promoting Atlas Shrugged and ARC editorials on the financial crisis and Ayn Rand's relevance - to very receptive recipients.

Overall, I think this was a very successful first event for the relaunched GGO - and I look forward to doing more of these, and having more of you participate.

Here's a short video of the event, to give you a better idea:

Tea Party Details - for GGO and for party overall

2009-04-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

We have heard back from a number of you on your Tea Party attendance in either Sac or SF. It will be good to see you there.

Here are the last details:

GGO specific, SF Tea Party: We will meet at 10:45 am on Wednesday at Civic Center Park, corner of McAllister & Larkin. We will then join the main group, which is meeting at the corner of Polk & McAllister at 11 am. Do bring posters – if you need the files again, let me know and I will e-mail asap. We will also have copies of some recent ARC editorials with us – we will ask all of you to try and hand those out: in addition to showing our presence to the media, this is a good opportunity to get exposure to ARC/ARI to people who may be sympathetic/have read Ayn Rand, but aren’t aware of these great organizations. Find me – I’ll have the hand-outs.

General Tea Party info – courtesy of the organizer, Sally Zelikovsky:
___________________________________________________________________

“This is an overview of everything. It might be old news for some of you, so bear w/ me.

I’d like to recap and bring some newbies up to speed.

Those of you on the meet up page who haven’t responded to me directly, should read this carefully.

WHERE AND WHEN (you know the WHY):

Civic Center (Plaza) Park.
Corner of McAllister and Polk.
From there, we walk to 450 Golden Gate (one block) to Pelosi’s office.
11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.
Come for the entire time or part of it; we will be in either of the two locations.

BE PREPARED TO:
--cheer and chant a lot!
--sign the Grievance Scroll (a draft of which is attached)
--register so that I have your name and email for next time (there will be a next time)

SPEAKERS:
Howard Epstein (Chair of SF-GOP) will introduce Dana Walsh and Melanie Morgan will also be speaking.

I am waiting to hear from about 3 others.

WHAT TO BRING:

1—pin a teabag to your lapel, jacket.

2—bring extra tea to give to Princess Pelosi, more symbolic than anything at this point as she will be at the Mark Hopkins for her book signing.

3—signs—keep them appropriate. Stay on message (bailouts, stimulus, budget, taxes, pork, earmarks). Please refrain from signs that will take us off message and give fuel to the left wing press and left wingers who might show up.

4—cameras and videos cameras: for posterity and security.

5—period outfits, FLAGS! We will say the Pledge to start this off and we’ll need flags for that as well as patriotism in general.

6—if you have a boombox and have extra hands for it, download some music (appropriate please) and bring it along. I’m trying to work something out w/ this. It’s not the end of the world if we don’t have music…it just might be nice on the march to Princess P’s.

7—a great attitude, your principles and a sense of humor as well as purpose.

8—patience. If the HuffPo or other leftwing brigades bother to appear, DO NOT LET THEM GOAD YOU….that is their sole purpose. I say: IGNORE THEM!

SECURITY:

1--I am hoping to speak w/ the police in charge on Monday.

2—I have two big “SECURITY” signs which really serve the only purpose of deterrence (kind of like those stickers the alarm companies give you). If the lefties show up, maybe they’ll be put off by the fact that they think we have security.

3—VOLUNTEERS to carry the signs—PLEASE NOTIFY ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE THIS HONOR.

4—Remember: don’t let them goad you. Minimize your contact w/ them. If you see something of concern, get someone w/ a camera to film it and go to one of the police.

5—If you see someone and they aren’t one of us, i.e., they’re wearing an ACORN t-shirt, they have a sign that says “Homophobe or Nazi” etc., they’re screaming certain things at us, they’re not wearing a tea bag pin, do the following:

1---as above, grab someone w/ a camera and keep your eve on them;

2---grab one of our “INFIL-TRAITOR” signs and go stand next to them, have someone take a picture and stick w/ that person for a while…it might agitate them enough to leave or relocate.

3---if you feel comfortable approaching them, you can tell them this and see if it has any impact:

“We have a permit that restricts this protest to matters of taxes and the budget and stimulus/bailouts. An anti-war or pro-abortion sign isn’t by law permitted at this protest. You will have to go somewhere else w/ this sign OR take one of ours or I will have to ask the police to escort you away.”
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Parking – there’s a garage right under the Civic Center, entrance on McAllister – apparently about $7.50 for two hours, for those of you driving.

Looking forward to seeming many of you!

Tea Party Details - Poster Examples & Info

2009-04-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

As we are one week away from the tea party, I again encourage everybody to let us know if you are planning to attend the tea party with the Golden Gate Objectivists. Our pre-meeting will be this Saturday, April 11th, at 10 am, at Doyle Street Café in Emeryville (www.doylestreetcafe.com, 5515 Doyle Street, parking across the street.) Ask for Golden Gate Objectivists – we have a table reserved in the back room.

We also need to get our posters ready. To be effective, we would like all of us to have similar style/messaging:

‘Golden Gate Objectivists’ as a header

Message in the middle. Possible messages:
'The Mixed Economy Failed. Try Capitalism - The Unkown Ideal'
'Selfishness IS a Virtue. Say NO to Sacrifice'
'Going John Galt. Say NO to Altruism'
'Read Atlas Shrugged Before It Happens Here.'
'Greed is not the cause. Altruism is. Read Ayn Rand.'

aynrandcenter.org url at the bottom (use approved by ARI.)

An example image is enclosed above.

If you want to make your own poster, you can e-mail us for a Word file, from which you can easily change the message wording. Other tips:

Kinkos will print them to 22x28 or 20x30 (common card stock/foam board sizes) for $4.50 per black/white copy
You can then glue to card stock (22x28) or foam board (20x30), both available from any office supply store (3 foam boards for $10-$12)
Handle is thin wood from Home Depot ($0.60 per foot)
I colored a few highlights in turquoise, to add some color (elements in turquoise in Word doc, came out light print in b/w prints, easy to color over.)

I volunteer to make up to 4 extra posters, in exchange for cost reimbursement of about $15 – if you plan on coming, and want to take me up on that offer, please e-mail me at goldengateobjectivists gmail com by end of day Thursday, April 9, so I can get them made on Friday, and bring them with me on Saturday. First come, first served...

Finally, we will send out one additional e-mail prior to the event with specific instructions on when/where to meet. Plan on being at the meeting spot (somewhere close to Civic Center Park) by 10:45 am on the 15th, so we can get ourselves organized as a group prior to the bigger event starting its march.

Looking forward to seeing/meeting many of you on Saturday and/or next Wednesday.

Tax Day Tea Party - in San Francisco!

2009-03-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

Good news: there will now be a Tax Day Tea Party in San Francisco on April 15 - and as this is more convenient for our Bay Area based members, we will plan to focus our participation at that event. (There are a few people who will still go to Sacramento, and we will coordinate posters, messages etc. between both groups.)

Here are the preliminary details for the San Francisco event, as provided by the organizer:

Meet at Civic Center Park in SF and march around Pelosi's office, City Hall and possibly S. Ct and then back to park; 11 am until 1 pm.

I will update this post with more details as they become available. The organizer mentioned that about 20 groups of people have already said they'd participate, even though the event hasn't received a lot of publicity yet, so hopefully there will be a good presence.

To help us figure out how many posters/placards to prepare, please let us know by April 3 whether you can make it, which location (SF or SAC), and if you need transportation or can provide it (esp. for the SAC contingent.) Our e-mail is goldengatobjectivists at gmail.com.

Feel free to forward this info to anyone you know who might participate, Objectivist or not: the more the better!

Northern California Tea Party - April 15th

2009-03-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

As you may be aware, there is a movement afoot to organize 'Tea Parties' - in honor of the Boston Tea Party - to protest the socialist, big-government, collectivist/altruist agenda being put forth in Washington.

The next tea party close to us is planned for April 15th in Sacramento, from 12 noon - 3 pm. We are planning to participate with a GGO presence, and would like for more people to join the cause.

Here is a link to the organizing group with more details: http://taxdayteaparty.com/teaparty/california

You'll need to get on Facebook to be able to communicate with them directly - the site above provides a link to the Facebook page.

Several of us have discussed how we can best participate. We would like to:

Show up with a meaningful group - at least a dozen or so people, between GGO and the local campus groups
Provide a clear message - with posters highlighting the ethical question, and drawing attention to Ayn Rand and ARI: consistent content, and lay-out (we could have a get-together to jointly make the posters prior to the event)
Get some media attention to the Objectivist, principled opposition as an alternative to the ad-hoc, economics-only perspective of most conservatives

If you are interested in participating, please e-mail us at goldengateobjectivists at gmail.com. Please provide your name, phone number, e-mail, whether you will be going to Sacramento and/or whether you can help with posters a week or so prior, whether you are driving and have space to take others (from where?) or whether you are looking for a ride (from where?) We will put together a list, and keep everybody who signs up posted via e-mail, in addition to posting on this blog.

We can do our final coordination - including sharing posters and meet-up info - on our regular meeting on April 11th - so plan to join us for that.

GGO - becoming active again

2009-03-05T21:10:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have been involved with GGO in the past know that the group has been dormant for the past 18 months or so. The key organizers were all busy with their 'other lives' - completing business projects and moves, starting new careers, and founding new families.

With some of these items under control, and with the urgency and motivation of taking action against the horrible decisions coming out of Washington these days, we are now resurrecting the group. We are:

Transferring the online presence to Blogger (this site) to make posting easier and more timely
Starting a regular, bi-monthly (maybe monthly at some point) standing meetings, to make it easier for people to plan to participate
Moving the e-mail to gmail - to bring all of our online presence under one roof (web site, online discussion group, and e-mail contact)
Looking for input, thoughts and volunteers to take on organizing roles to make the group be more real.

We would like to see you at one of the next meetings - the first one will be on April 11th at 10 am, at Doyle Street Cafe in Emeryville (www.doylestreetcafe.com, they have a back room we can use). We plan to hold regular bi-monthly meetings at the same location & time, every 2nd Saturday of even months. We will plan other, ad-hoc meetings as well - see other post on the Sacramento Tea Party as an example. If enough people are interested, we can also plan another series of bi-monthly meetings for early Sunday dinners at some convenient location for odd-numbered months. (Suggestions for locations are welcome - should be easy to reach via car, central Bay Area location, and ideally easy by public transport, too, with a private room if we have enough people.)

If you want to be notified of activities, please ensure we have your e-mail address - e-mail us at goldengateobjectivists at gmail.com.

We look forward to seeing you soon - and to working together to get an Objectivist voice heard in the Bay Area and Northern California.

The Time is Right for Local Intellectual Activism

2009-03-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

Golden Gate Objectivists was started in 2006 because we believe the time is right to take Objectivist intellectual activism to local communities. It has been dormant for the past year or so, due to the organizers being busy with their lives – starting families, completing educations, and operating and growing businesses. We are now in the process of restarting the group, and look forward to reconnecting with existing contacts, and building more.

The statement below is taken from the original group site – www.goldengateobjectivists.com - which is no longer in operation, but to which we link here for a history.

We believe that this type of intellectual activism is even more relevant now, as the we face the largest attack by the altruist/collectivists in a long time from the new Obama administration. We hope that with GGO, we can energize each other and facilitate activism, which will help us make an impact and change the direction of our country before the push towards socialism has gone too far to be reversed.

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Over the past two decades, through the efforts of ARI and others, Objectivism has made great strides towards becoming a cultural force. University departments are headed by Objectivists, a growing cadre of young professional intellectuals are entering the market, and the mass media are taking note – inviting ARI speakers to speak on key topics on national TV and publishing OpEd pieces in record numbers.

In parallel, many Objectivists who are not professional intellectuals – doctors, lawyers, business people – have gained a strong education in Objectivist ideas through campus clubs, summer conferences, ARI online lectures and taped lectures sold through the Ayn Rand Bookstore.

Around us, many important issues need to be addressed – from how to combat terrorism to dealing with social security, from improving education to standing up for free speech in the face of Islamo-Fascist intimidation. The Left is dying as a compelling moral force, offering nothing but short–range pragmatism. The Right is picking up strength almost by default – as the only mass movement offering a moral perspective on critical decisions we need to make as individuals and as a country.

We believe that many honest people outside of Objectivism are struggleing to find compelling, non-religious, moral answers to guide their lives. Objectivism is ideally positioned to fill this intellectual vacuum.

In this context, GGO's aim is to bring the Objectivism message to our local communities. We believe we can achieve multiple goals by organizing an outreach–focused community group:

· Engage honest local non-Objectivists in discussions about Objectivist ideas.

· Leverage local knowledge and exposure to have Objectivist intellectuals speak before local groups.

· Gain exposure in local media, including newspapers, TV and online forums, by being local advocates on national topics and becoming involved in local topics with philosophical aspects.

· Re-engage and provide a forum for Objectivists who are passionate about spreading Ayn Rand's ideas but are unable to pursue intellectual activism as a full–time career.

· Serve as a catalyst and forum for local Objectivists to educate themselves in Objectivism and to socialize with like–minded people.

· Broaden the support for ARI – by reactivating 'inactive' Objectivists and by exposing financially qualified, honest non–Objectivists to the right ideas and to ARI speakers.

As this list of goals illustrates, GGO aims to go beyond the 'traditional' community group activities of discussion groups and social events. We believe that a clear, long–range purpose of promoting Objectivism in our local area will help keep participants excited and engaged, whether or not they become friends and want to spend social time together.

We believe we need a core group of 4–10 people in the San Francisco Bay Area willing to co–lead this effort – and that there should to be a dozen or more people willing to contribute their specific skills and interests.

Golden Gate Objectivists - Statement of purpose

2009-03-05T17:07:00.000-08:00

Golden Gate Objectivists (GGO) is an informal association of individuals joining together to promote Objectivist ideas in our local community. Our goals include:

1. Spreading Objectivist ideas locally through outreach activities, for example:

Promoting the invitation of Objectivist intellectuals to speak at public forums in the local area - from open-minded political organizations to local fund-raising events based on social networking, to other public speaking opportunities
Piggy-back on other public events to make Objectivist voices heard - e.g., through participation at political events, protest...
Organizing systematic Letter-to-the-Editor campaigns to get our voices heard in local media - newspapers, radio, online
Becoming known to local media as 'go-to' people on specific topics of interest to, and in the expertise of, group participants
Selectively advocate an Objectivist perspective on local community issues through ad-hoc activism

2. Increasing the support by San Francisco Bay Area Objectivists, Ayn Rand fans and sympathizers for the Ayn Rand Institute - through financial and intellectual means

3. Creating a forum for local Objectivists to connect with each other - for discussions of Objectivism, presentations and intellectual learning as well as for mutual support and socializing