Stephen Colbert brings our attention to the latest manifestation in conservatives' ongoing embarrassing-fanboy thing about Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged -- the revolutionary notion of "going Galt":
Colbert: So, what happens is, all the successful people go on a strike. Now, the mastermind [screen script: "Hell no, we won't CEO!"] -- the mastermind behind the strike is John Galt, who bravely spends the last 60 pages of the book praising selfishness. He is a hero who tells the poor, quote, "You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you." Nation, this book is like the conservative Bible!
Now, Ayn Rand has some pretty powerful fans, including Ronald Reagan, Alan Greenspan, and the author of The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey. And conservatives are using Atlas Shrugged to spur a movement:
[Michelle Malkin, to Neil Cavuto:] Going Galt -- and this of course is a reference to the famous Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged, where the protagonist, John Galt, called a general strike among the wealth producers in society --
Colbert: Well said, Attractive Humanoid Lifeform. Yes! Going Galt: Rich people scaling back their productivity so that the lower-downs can't get their grubby fingers on our stuff! There's even a website: GoingJohnGalt.org. Its creator is calling for "a calculated work slowdown."
It takes a brave man to call for a work slowdown. Particularly when his site prominently features an announcement that he's looking for work.
Colbert, perhaps in a better position, tries "going Galt." It works for about four seconds.
What'll be really funny is watching these Galt-goers come scrambling back from their U.S. of A-holes when the economy gets rumbling again. I plan to welcome them back by laughing in their faces.
Though by then, of course, they'll have moved on to fresh new phony right-wing issues to get all worked up about. And they'll still believe Ayn Rand had something important to say.
I will give Atlas Shrugged one bit of credit: It was maybe the first widely published work of true, unadulterated wankery.
I don't think that's his navel he's gazing at there.
