Atlas Shrugged - Almost done :)

I am not done yet.....can't wait to see how it ends, but the first 700 pages were so prophetic regarding what is happening to us presently that I have to see how she resolves this issue. I hope there is something to give me hope that we can turn it around. For those of you who have not read the book, I found this little commentary about its relevance to what we are experiencing now that is said so much better than how I could articulate it.

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, entitled, "Is Rand Relevant," explained the parallels between Atlas Shrugged and today’s events:
“In Atlas Shrugged, Rand tells the story of the U.S. economy crumbling under the weight of crushing government interventions and regulations. Meanwhile, blaming greed and the free market, Washington responds with more controls that only deepen the crisis. Sound familiar?”

Brook also stressed the importance today of the book’s often overlooked message that capitalism cannot be properly defended without morally defending profit and self-interest: “. . . only an ethic of rational selfishness can justify the pursuit of profit that is the basis of capitalism--and that as long as self-interest is tainted by moral suspicion, the profit motive will continue to take the rap for every imaginable (or imagined) social ill and economic disaster. Just look how our present crisis has been attributed to the free market instead of government intervention--and how proposed solutions inevitably involve yet more government intervention to rein in the pursuit of self-interest.”

A good illustration of this intervention that is not clouded by the capitalistic greed components such as GM, Countrywide, AIG, etc., is the education system. Government at the Federal, State, County and District level all have their hands in the pot and in the way teachers should teach in their classroom, not to mention the Union element. Where is the money...at the student level or with all the layers of bureaucracy? Where does the power lie to change this and what is their motivation to change it? The power to change it lies in the hands of the very ones who benefit from leaving it as it is. Ugh. I won't tell you how it ends, but I hope I have some hope at the end of this. I know I do about my individual conviction and power, but I hope I find it for the country as a whole.

Who is John Galt?