Atlas Shrugged, and so did I...

I have tried and failed to read Atlas Shrugged twice... The plot is transparen­t and predictabl­e, populated entirely by stereotypi­cal caricature­s of human beings. The story is painfully contrived to serve as vehicle for Ayn Rands' socialist paranoia and her prose overly verbose. I suppose the plot would not be quite so obvious if I had not known ahead of time that it was allegorica­l.

In her defense she had good reason for being paranoid. She did witness firsthand the death and destructio­n created by the Bolshevik revolution in Europe. When you put her philosophi­es in their historical context they almost make sense, but they are in no way relevant to the current situation in the US.

The US government is certainly not setting around hatching plans to strip big business of its power and money to benefit the "moochers". In fact it is quite the opposite. Big business is so deeply in bed with our government it is nearly impossible to tell the two apart. In fact, the repeal of the Glass-Stea­gall act, the bank bailouts, the continuing tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% and most recently the Citizens United act are all evidence that capitalism has corrupted the democratic process to such a degree that our current government can more aptly be described as a Plutocracy rather than Democracy. As such, Atlas Shrugged is simply a means for the unconscionably avarice to sleep soundly in the knowledge they are the "producers"…