by Barbara Branden

I have often thanked Michael Kelly privately for everything he’s done for me, but it’s time I thanked him publicly, and time I told those of you who are not familiar with his activities something about this remarkable man.

I did not know Michael until he appeared one day on Solo, long before the present hysteria, and wrote a very beautiful post thanking me for “The Passion of Ayn Rand,” and explaining that it had been of great value to him at a crucial time in his life. I was very pleased that this was so, as I told him, and I assumed that that was the end of it. It was not the end of it. I have learned that if Michael feels someone has helped him, he will return the help many times over. And that is what he has done for me.

There was a period of some months when Solo rang with praises for my biography of Rand– yes, much of it from people who are now denouncing it and me — but later, when I criticized Perigo for his rudeness and endless hysterical damnations of innocent people, when I defended an old friend against Perigo’s malice, when I sanctioned James Kilbourne’s article “The Drooling Beast” because I believed Perigo would not have published if he did not agree with it, the tide quickly turned. I was not startled by Perigo’s about-face; I had seen it many times before with other people whom he first praised and then damned, and I had had no doubt that his basic hostility would one day be directed against me should I ever cross him, but I was startled by the sycophancy that caused many people on Solo to become his clones. I had expected better of those who called themselves Objectivists.

When I left Solo, unwilling to sanction by my presence a debate on my integrity, and feeling that so long as I remained I would be swimming in a sewer of malice, Michael had taken up the battle that I was too disgusted any longer to fight. Many of you know what the results have been for him. He has become an equal victim of the brutish behavior on Solo and Noodlefood, the butt of Perigo’s ugliest spite and hatred; but he continued to stand firm as a rock in defense of those who were not there to defend themselves. He has fought not only for me, but for everyone and everything he values and who are being vilified: for Nathaniel, for The Objectivist Center, for David Kelley, among many others, and now for Chris Sciabarra, the latest victim of the campaign of lies and distortions. And with Kat’s invaluable help, he has created Objectivist Living, where people of good will can meet and exchange ideas in an atmosphere free of acrimony.

I have often told him that it’s enough, that he has his own important work to do, that he should return to it and leave the haters to stew in their own bile, but it became clear to me that he would not do so as long as there still were things he wanted to say and people he wanted to defend.

Many years ago, I wrote a novel called “Price No Object.” It’s theme was loyalty to values, a trait exemplified by the heroine of the novel who continued to fight for her values no matter what price she had to pay, no matter what the odds against her. For her, price was no object. The novel could have been dedicated to Michael Kelly.

Thank you, my friend. It is now I who am in your debt.

First published on Objectivist Living on April 29, 2006.