I’m so thoroughly pleased to see the tradition of Objectivist speakers at the Ford Hall Forum continue. I’m particularly pleased by the choice of speaker, since I can’t imagine a better person for the job than Yaron Brook. Here’s ARI’s announcement:

Sunday, October 22, 2006
A Ford Hall Forum Event

Democracy vs. Victory: Why the “Forward Strategy of Freedom” Had to Fail
Yaron Brook

[After Sept. 11 the Bush administration declared that we must go on a mission to bring freedom to the Middle Eastern nations that threaten us; thus, the Forward Strategy of Freedom. According to this strategy, establishing democracies in key Muslim countries, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq, would spur a revolution in the rest of the Muslim world--a revolution that would bring free, pro-Western, anti-terrorist governments to power.

But the strategy has failed. With the rise of the religious Shiites in Iraq, of Hamas and of Hezbollah, and with the electoral victories of Islamic radicals elsewhere in the Middle East, the Muslim world has grown more militant.

Why has the Forward Strategy of Freedom failed, and why was failure inevitable? What are the flaws inherent in the strategy? How does it necessarily undermine victory? What motivates it and what strategy should replace it? These are the questions Dr. Brook will address in this talk.]

Established in 1908, the Ford Hall Forum hosts public lectures in Boston, Massachusetts, by leading cultural figures, politicians and intellectuals. From 1961 to 1981, Ayn Rand was a frequent invited speaker at the Forum. Several of her lectures were subsequently published as essays in such books as The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. Since her death, Dr. Leonard Peikoff has spoken at the Forum on a number of occasions, most recently in 2003. Dr. Brook will speak at the Forum for the first time this year.

Dr. Brook’s lecture… will be preceded by several lecture events and a panel discussion, beginning with a campus club talk by Dr. Brook at Tufts University on Friday evening; more details will follow.

Location:
Ford Hall Forum/Faneuil Hall
Boston, Massachusetts

Time:
6:30 PM

Paul and I will be traveling to Boston to attend.