Atlas Said "Fuhgeddaboutit"

From the e-mail file -- comments, dated March 14, on a so-called "John Galt Plan" to save the U.S. financial system. The idea, essentially, is for government to "get out of the way" and allow the self-correcting mechanisms of the system to actually operate. References to John Galt and Atlas are based on the novel, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. My comments:

Sure -- except there are no more "Atlases" now (assuming there ever were). The captains of industry and finance have long since sold out to collectivism -- or better, "participatory fascism", in which they have much more of a stake in totalitarian government than in "pure" capitalism. This is true right up to the top, i.e. Warren Buffet. The richest, most "self-actualized" people on earth today would hardly have gotten to where they are if it had not been for government-granted monopolies, bribery, behind-the-scenes manipulation, and conspiracy. I offer as evidence that (1) the Democrats are now the party of the rich as well as the poor; and (2) the stock market doesn't seem to mind who is president -- since they are all, at this point, reading off the same sheet of music. All have been co-opted, and the fix is definitely in. Obama is the JFK of our generation -- all sizzle and no substance. We cannot expect a revolution from below or from the top -- and the middle class is too cowed, and/or too complacent, to do anything, as befits the classic definition of the "bourgeois" -- they each have their own little rice bowl, they are each the king of their own little molehill, they are as wedded to entitlements and "social security" as the most abject inner-city dweller, and they are petrified of any real change. Where does one find truly "free enterprise" these days? In the Fortune 500? Not a bit. It's in the corner mom-and-pop pizza parlor down the street, which really is allowed to fail and must abide by the invisible hand of supply and demand. No one in the upper echelons is at risk, and of course the proletariat have nothing to lose from collectivism. (As an old acquaintance of mine used to say, regarding the "right-wing" hillbillies of SE Ohio -- "Why is it the people who have the least to lose from Communism are the most opposed to it?" Good question!) And -- as I've said before, the only guy I can think of with "the face without pain or fear or guilt" is -- Bill Clinton! Pardon me while I barf.

No, the end of all this will not be revolution from any source, but only the age-old answer of history, i.e. the overcoming of a decadent, soft society by one with energy, beliefs (however wrong or distorted) and, yes, hate. So we have a race to the top (or bottom) with the leading contenders being Russia, China, and Islam -- of which, I expect the first two to enter into a compact (assuming they haven't already) a la the Hitler-Stalin pact, and the third to act as the cannon fodder and the "lumpen proletariat" for the first two. The decline and fall will be on the part of the West, i.e. the "democracies", including Israel. I don't see how this can be avoided. And as you say, the question is not "whether" but "how soon" and "how badly". (Even the Roman Empire "survived", in a sense, in the form of the Catholic Church. Its conquerors were absorbed into that body, and life went on. Of course, we had to endure a little something called "The Dark Ages", but even then there were some points of light, e.g. the Irish monasteries, and also the Eastern Church and, yes, the Moslem World all the way to Spain.) Yeah, this business of having to live as a part of history sucks. Better brush off your time capsules, 'cause a thousand years from now no one will believe it.